Salvation
by Sei-chan-1999
Summary: Subaru and Kamui exist in multiple worlds; worlds where they love each other as brothers, worlds where they cannot exist without each other as lovers, worlds where they are the very same and sometimes, worlds where one has to hurt the other…to help them both survive.
1. Hurt

**Title:** Salvation.

**Summary:** Subaru and Kamui exist in multiple worlds; worlds where they love each other as brothers, worlds where they cannot exist without each other as lovers, world where they are the very same and sometimes, worlds where one has to hurt the other…to help them both survive.

**Warning:** (Please read for your own awareness) _**Subaru + Kamui, Subaru x Kamui, Seishirou x Subaru, Fuuma x Kamui, Seishirou + Fuuma,**_ Weird, out of order timeline and many different POV's. A few original characters. Written in first person. Minor characters' POV's shown by italics, for extra reference. The main characters are the members of the famous X quartet although minor ones may make an appearance later on. 

If you don't understand something, just keep moving forward and sooner or later, it'll all fall into place.

**Rating: M** (for dark themes, violence, sexuality, portrayals of places, implied adult themes in the future. Controversial topics will be handled through the course of the fic.)

**Disclaimer:** All characters are property of Clamp. I have no rights to them. My own views are not reflected in this fanfic in any way. It's just a story and make of it what you will as the reader.

**Introductory Note:** _This story came from a few interactions I had with fellow X/1999 fans, through this site and on tumblr. While all of them differed in terms of their preferred pairings and so on, everyone agreed on one thing._

_Abusive Subaru/Kamui is prohibited._

_This is justified by saying that Subaru would never be able to hurt anyone and would never use Kamui to vent out his frustrations on him and I totally agree. Fanfics dealing with that sort of thing are usually badly received. But, the purpose of fanfiction is to write your own story while staying true to the canon. So, what about a story where unimagined abuse happens…and it's totally justified?_

_The idea sent chills down my spine when I first thought of it, so this is what I made during a time when I was feeling really depressed. I hope you enjoy the story. Give it a chance and don't pass a hasty judgment, please. I appreciate your patience and hope you enjoy the story._

XXX

**Chapter 1: By Sei-chan-1999**

**Hurt**

"You're hurting me."

The admonition comes nervously, as if it's wrong to tell someone that what they're doing is nothing to them and a torture for you.

He sounds ashamed to tell me that he's in pain because of me.

I stop.

"I'm sorry, Kamui-chan," I say and he doesn't reply but goes back to squeezing the squealing rubber duck, ignoring soap bubbles spewing into the steamy air around us.

I change my strategy instead. Rather than working on his scalp with my nails as I've been unconsciously doing, I use the pads of my fingers instead and then sift through his soaked hair.

"Thank you," he says when I wipe a trail of shampoo foam away from his eyes.

I soap him all over, rinse him off and after wrapping him in a towel, I lift him out of the tub and put him on the wet floor.

"Sumeragi-san," he begins, pressing himself against my legs for warmth. It's a weakness I know he would never express in front of anyone besides me and it means that he trusts me.

"Don't call me that," I correct quickly, "I'm just fifteen."

"Ni-san," he repeats slowly, as if putting the word through a test, "Am I coming to live with you?"

"In a few more years," I tell him. The next instant, he's wound his arms around my waist, or at least how much of it he can reach on tiptoe.

"Not today?" he asks and when I shake my head, he looks betrayed and unhappy.

"I need more time," I reply as I kneel down and help him step into a pair of pajama shorts.

"For what?" he demands bossily, balancing himself with a small hand on my shoulder and shivering a little. He's slight, wet and smells of citrus.

I love him so much.

"To learn some more. About how to take care of you."

"You know it already! You gave me a bath!" Kamui protests and grabs my hair to tug at it and show his dismay.

"There's lots more I need to learn," I say, prying his fingers loose, "A bath isn't everything. I need to learn how to feed you, how to get money for both of us, send you to a new school, find a house and then, I have to learn how to protect you."

The six-year-old looks highly flattered by the idea of being protected by _me_ of all people and smiles when I take his hand, leading him out of the dingy bathroom to tuck him into bed.

The other children stare at me, some of them wary, others curious and jealous when I enter the dormitory. I try to imagine a life where you have no one to claim as your own and push down a shiver. One or two come closer to me, silently asking for what I've already given away and I just pat their heads.

I can't help everyone.

Kamui falls asleep barely three minutes later and I stare down at his tiny body under the sheets, heaving slightly as he breathes. I leave after making sure I have that picture burned into my mind.

"I'm coming back for him," I tell the warden at the reception and she smiles patronizingly at me. I bow and take my leave so I can catch my flight in time.

I will be back for Kamui.

And when I have him, I'll never leave him. That one is a promise I keep within myself, because when you say it aloud, you tempt the world to break it.

XXX

_Sumeragi Subaru-kun impresses me._

_It's not his performance, his conduct or the way he holds himself, rigid and impassive, barely lifting his eyes off whatever he's occupied with until it's completely finished._

_No._

_His brother is the reason I paid any attention to him at all in the beginning._

_They have differing surnames: Sumeragi Subaru, age twenty-one, a rising member of the organization he joined six years ago and Shirou Kamui, nearly fourteen, easily the youngest and shortest person in this designated zone ever since he arrived here, not even nine years old. _

_He walks into their house after school and is obviously shocked to find the four uniformed officers, including his brother, seated at the table, watching him frozen at the doorway with a loaded shoulder bag slung across his front._

_Subaru barely spares him a glance but waits for me to continue what I was saying._

"_Subaru-kun. You may greet your brother. This is your home after all," I remind him and he nods._

"_Kamui," Subaru addresses the boy, getting up and Kamui steps forward into the house and shuts the door. He regains his composure and bows to us politely, before approaching his elder brother. He takes his hand and presses it to his lips respectfully, the way our custom dictates, before letting him go. Subaru smiles faintly down at him and runs his fingers through the boy's messy hair in response. _

_Another difference comes to notice. Subaru's hair is pure black while his brother's is a shade closer to dark brown._

"_You need a haircut," he chides mildly, "Remind me later, all right?"_

_No matter his strengths, acting is not one of them. He may want to convince the world otherwise, but his younger brother, now barely into his teens, is his most treasured possession._

"_How was school today?" Subaru asks and Kamui sits in one of the armchairs a little away from where we are seated at the table._

"_It was fine," Kamui replies, "But a class of one gets lonely."_

"_Poor Kamui-kun," I can't resist saying, "How do you manage to catch up on sleep in a classroom like that?"_

_Kamui smiles and looks down at his feet. His brother has disciplined him well. Maybe away from the eyes of superiors, he is a normal boy, but before us, he's contained and courteous. He may have been adopted from the lowest of backgrounds, but has been taught the manners, sophistication and social graces of an adult twice his age._

"_Maybe by the time you get a growth spurt, we can find you a girlfriend and a few more classmates," another associate calls out, joining into the needling._

_Kamui blushes and looks towards Subaru for help. The older man just smiles fondly at him, shakes his head and comes back to the table to re-continue the talk._

"_I'd like to extend the class division for the experimental department," I announce once everything is readied again. Subaru's eyebrows shoot up for an instant as his brother distractedly picks up a magazine from the glass coffee table before him and begins to flip through it._

"_Extend?" Subaru asks, clearly disturbed._

"_We are right now containing our activities to those who fall into the range of zero to twenty," I explain patiently, "I propose to extend the range by another twenty on that end of the spectrum to cover a wider range of abnormalities."_

_Subaru just frowns._

"_May I be so impertinent as to ask why?" he asks and Kamui shoots a glance at him. No doubt the idea of Subaru being 'impertinent' is rather ridiculous to the child._

"_There isn't a specific reason, Subaru-kun," I say simply, "I thought we could expand our horizon and allow more interns to take part in the process rather than keeping it under wraps. It's a benefit to you too."_

"_Is that so?"_

"_It is," my colleague assures him, "You'll have your own sub-group of interns and trainees to supervise and guide. Your work-load will decrease and there'll be lesser involvement, but it's a definite promotion."_

_A promotion means change. A new house, a new locality, more opportunities and more pay. I know I'm the only one who sees Sumeragi's eyes flick towards an oblivious Kamui before he replies carefully._

"_Thank you for illustrating the point. It would be an honor to take up this new position."_

"_You really are too formal at times, Subaru-kun," I say and from the corner of my eye, I see Kamui putting down his magazine slowly and looking up at the dark flight of stairs right in front of him, "And your brother is heading the same way. What do you say, Kamui-kun?"_

_To my surprise, Kamui ignores me._

_The thirteen-year-old's eyes are fixed on the stairwell. From my angle, I see nothing through the darkness between the banisters, but his violet eyes have spotted something else._

"_Kamui-kun?" I repeat, a little louder._

_His eyes travel down the stairs one at a time. The purple orbs that are so entrancing on his delicate face that people, even other men, can't keep their eyes off of him here. And in a contained and deceptive place like this, it's no wonder that his brother is so protective. But if he believed it wasn't haven, he wouldn't be here._

_And it is. Compared to the world outside where we carry out our work, we are in paradise here._

"_Kamui!"_

_Subaru says it this time, his voice harsh, but he's blatantly disregarded too. He tries again._

"_Kamui, look at-"_

"_Wait," I instruct him, watching the boy._

_Kamui's eyes go down some more. One step. Another. Fraction by fraction his irises fall._

_As if watching someone or something walk downstairs step by step._

_He reminds me of a cat ready to dash up a wall or bolt into the night at the sight of an enemy._

_But no one is there._

_The glass shattering is Subaru breaking a piece off the corner of the glass table. He ends up with a jagged and triangular shard in his hand and walking over to Kamui, he strikes the teenager across the face with a violence that sends him off balance. He steps before the boy and blocks his view._

"_Subaru?"_

_Kamui is shocked as he looks up and makes no move to resist when Subaru drags him to stand by the collar of his shirt and pulls him to the nearest bedroom. He shuts the door and locks it behind him, the glass piece still in his grip._

_He leaves the three of us behind at the table, totally stunned at such savagery from _him_ of all people, directed towards a mere boy of thirteen._

_For a few seconds, there's silence, until something heavy thuds to the floor._

_Then the screaming starts. A boy's shouting, his voice not broken fully yet._

"_Sumeragi-san!"_

_Another colleague gets to his feet, intending to stop him, but I raise a hand._

"_No," I say firmly, "Sit down."_

_Kamui is crying from behind the door, his voice a little muted by it, imploring his elder brother to stop. This time, I can make out that he is ignored and is lifted onto something even as he resists. There's the sound of struggling and I deduce that Subaru is holding down Kamui and using the glass shard on his body, since there's no other distinct noise. It continues for about a whole minute until the boy begins to choke._

_He's allowed a rest._

_There's silence for another minute as Kamui tries to catch his breath and then, the scream reaches a new peak as Subaru begins the abuse again. I hear something on a table fall over from his flailing._

_In spite of myself, I feel the hairs of my neck standing up._

"_But, sir! Surely you're not going to allow him to-"_

"_Sumeragi-kun is disciplining his brother," I reply, "It's a personal matter and we have no right to interfere, even if he kills Kamui-kun."_

_Which, of course, he won't. I'm sure about that._

_Subaru doesn't say a word through the whole ordeal. _

_Kamui begs some more. He tries to sit up, I think, but is forced down again and brutally hit. He screams a few more times, saying he's sorry over and over again, trying to tell him something else and then-_

_Silence at last. Kamui has blacked out._

_Another door within the room opens. Water runs. A tap creaks closed. I can imagine Subaru trying to revive him._

_Kamui moans as he regains consciousness._

_Then the speaking starts._

_Subaru-kun's voice is calm as he talks in a low tone, telling Kamui something that is too unintelligible to hear. Kamui replies shakily and just as softly, unheard to us but clear to his brother. His words are punctuated by pants and he's struggling to keep from weeping again._

_Subaru makes him repeat a set of words several times and Kamui obediently does, his speech blurry and slurred. Obviously a reprimand of what he must never do again._

"_Do you understand now?" I ask and the man drops his head, "It's between them."_

"_Yes, sir," he replies and we wait._

_Subaru opens the door and then closes it after he emerges._

"_I apologize for my brother," he says, "I'll ensure he never ignores you again."_

"_It was unnecessary," I state firmly, "He's a child."_

_Subaru holds out his hands for a mere second. The glass shard is glinting crimson and his palms are spattered with blood._

"_Would you be so kind as to call a doctor to attend to him?" he asks, "I'm afraid I can't dial like this."_

_He goes away to wash up._

_One of my men gets to the kitchen to turn on the faucet for him. The other one stares into the room where Kamui is probably now lying dazed and battered._

_I can't help but to look at the stairs again. There's nothing there._

_Nothing at all. And interestingly, everyone else has forgotten about it._

"_I'll call the emergency services instead," I offer, stopping him as he goes over to the damaged coffee table, "You should tend to your brother."_

_Subaru stops, wiping his wet hands on his trousers and meets my eyes._

"_Thank you, Seishirou-san."_

XXX

I slide my hands under the sheets and find Kamui curled up in the dark, feigning sleep. I click on a light before I sit down and let my fingers trace his features until I find his head and then press the icepack I brought with me against his ear.

Kamui hisses and arches up violently but then, he sighs in relief as the chillness spreads.

"How did you know?" he asks in wonder, pushing the sheets, "Ni-san?"

"Because a few years ago, I was seventeen too," I tell him tersely, "Was this Fuuma's idea again?"

"Um…"

That tells me all I need to know.

"I suppose I should be thankful you didn't tattoo his name across your front while you were at it," I mutter and he kicks me.

"What did you get, by the way?" I ask him curiously and touch the new stud in his earlobe carefully. When I move away, he holds my hand with his own and presses it there again, as if trying to soak me against himself.

"A crucifix," he admits, "Just one ear."

"Was there any reason for it?"

"Not really."

I sigh and get into bed with him.

"You shouldn't," Kamui says quickly, pushing me as I try to hold him, "My trial is next week and they must be watching the house…if they find out that we….that we…then-"

"We're brothers," I cut in, "Despite everything else that's happened, that never changes. And anyway, you're seventeen. You're allowed to do what you want."

Kamui snuggles up to me in reply.

"Something really good has been happening since everyone learned the truth about you," I say, pulling him close and keeping a hold on the icepack at the same time.

"What?"

"Girls have stopped proposing to me."

XXX

He's almost in tears of rage when they finally let him in. His clothes are crumpled from being held back for hours and his hands are bruised and reddened, as if he's been banging on the door. He runs over to where I'm half sitting and half lying on the military hospital bed and stands by my side awkwardly, breathing hard, trying to take in all my injuries at once.

His escort waits at the doorway, looking almost disgusted by the open show of emotion.

"A moment, please," I tell the nurse and two doctors attending to me and they nod and excuse themselves. I drag the sheet up from my waist to my chest so Kamui won't have to see how badly I'm hurt. As it is, he lets out something close to a dry sob.

"Shirou-kun," his escort snaps, "Control yourself. Maintain decorum before your brother."

Before he can say anything more, I take Kamui into my arms and hug him. It's awkward because he's standing and I'm lower than him, so I make space and pull the ten-year-old onto the bed. That way, he's kneeling over me instead, his head on top of mine.

"What happened?" Kamui asks, his voice muffled by my hair. The escort glares at me and I hold Kamui around the waist tighter, in defiance.

"It was an accident. I was attacked during a raid," I say to him alone, "It's nothing, really."

I can't stop my voice from slipping a little and press harder against his stomach, wishing he was the older one for once, because I can't take this anymore. I'm not even twenty, I wasn't meant for this and it's too much for me to handle by myself.

Kamui just swallows hard as he messily strokes my hair and grips me tighter. He lets me hide against him, so while it looks as if I'm comforting him, it's the exact opposite. He releases me when I stop shaking, sliding against me tiredly. He's noticed the tear stains on his uniform but thankfully says nothing about them.

"Are you in pain?" he asks worriedly, brushing my cheek with his fingers nervously until I close my eyes and sigh hard. Then, I open my eyes and nudge his head onto my chest, so we're closer.

"I was," I say, "Until a few minutes ago."

Kamui's eyebrows go up in wonder.

"Really? What happened then?"

He's just ten.

The escort, unable to take more of this, leaves the room and I have to laugh.

XXX

"Shirou-san, please remain absolutely still."

"Subaru?"

Someone wipes my face and wedges something soft under my head as I open my eyes.

"He's going to be all right. Give him air."

There are at least six people over me; police, officers and medical staff and I'm trapped to the ground, staring up, feeling like I'm going to drown as a weight presses me down to the floor. I try to sit up or at least turn my head. I remember the last memories; doors banging open, men shouting, glass breaking, fired shots and Subaru holding me and…vanishing.

"Shirou-san! Stop moving!"

A hand grabs me and forces me to remain still.

"Let go! Just let-"

"That's enough! Control yourself!"

"Subaru! What did you do to him?!"

"He's right here."

Fuuma is beside me, appearing from nowhere. He takes my hand gently and leads it down to the weight on top of me and I feel bloody wetness and soft hair and sob in relief. I know it's him. I just know.

"You can't move," Fuuma tells me as I look up at him, "Sumeragi-san was shot in the back by the assassin he didn't kill. If you get up, you'll hurt him. Just wait for a while. I'll stay here with you."

"Sumeragi-san?"

"What the hell happened?"

"Assassins. Sumeragi-san tried to take them down before-"

New voices, the smell of disinfectant, injections being prepared and I can't feel my brother's heartbeat anymore.

"He's going to be all right," Fuuma says calmly when I start crying again, "There's no need for that."

Someone asks Fuuma how old Sumeragi-san is. Fuuma says he's twenty-one, because he's nine years older than me, but that's not true; he's still twenty and his birthday is in four days.

"Why did he allow the last one to remain alive?" someone demands and boots step into my vision.

"He ran out of bullets and shielded his brother instead," someone else supplies, bored, "His military vest stopped too much damage."

I see Seishirou-san there, staring down at us. He smiles down at me as if this is all a game. A man whose name I don't know, another officer, comes to stand beside him and looks at me pinned to the ground. He raises his eyebrows when he does.

"Well," he says audibly, tilting his head, "We all make mistakes."

Fuuma puts his hands over my ears but he's too late. I heard it all.

And Subaru did make a mistake.

He saved the life of someone who wanted to die right after that.


	2. Violation

**Chapter 2**

**Violation**

"Why do you bite people?" Kamui asks me when everyone at the party has left and he's finally allowed to speak to me. He makes a gesture as if he wants to move to come and sit beside with me on the couch but remembers that he's nine and not five.

"I didn't bite anyone," I say simply and hold my arms out for him. He hesitates then rushes into them and I haul him onto my lap as he winds himself around me. He enjoys the touches and motions most people would deem appropriate for anyone under the age of seven, but he's so starved for physical contact and affection that I'm sure he'd let me burp him if I tried.

"I saw you biting three people just now," Kamui argues and pulls my tie down to fiddle with it curiously.

"I wasn't biting them," I sigh, looking around the apartment, as I bounce him a little. It's old and well used by the previous occupants, but it's still a privilege to have it for my younger brother and myself at the age of eighteen.

"Then why were you licking their hands? That's gross."

I have to laugh, even if it's a little tired.

"It's a mark of respect," I explain, "Everyone does it. You just haven't seen it before. Let me show you."

I turn him around on my lap and take one of his small arms while he watches, fascinated. I fold his fingers into a fist and hold it to my lips for a few moments before dropping it.

There's dramatic silence for a few precious seconds.

"Eeew," he says, killing the atmosphere instantly and wipes the back of his hand on my pants, "What was that for?"

"It means that you respect a person…that they mean the world to you and that you're willing to die for them or their cause," I say, trying not to break into blushing. It's a heavy thing to tell a child.

That stops him.

He stares up, horrified and tries to push himself off me but I grab him and don't loosen my grip.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"Let go!"

He squirms like a fish but I'm just as stubborn as him.

"Once you tell me what's bothering you."

"I don't want you to die," he says, almost hysterical as he lurches.

"It's just a promise. It doesn't have to come true," I tell him.

"Then don't make it! It's stupid!"

"I don't think so," I say and lean back, "You'll understand this when you get older, but the action isn't what matters. It's when you do it that's of significance. The meaning is just a reminder for the other person. It's the timing; not the promise."

He clearly doesn't get it, but after a pause where he relaxes doubtfully, he leans down and drops a misaimed kiss on my knuckles.

"Good night," he says and goes to his room after sliding neatly off my legs.

I realize that I've forgotten to reply to him only after his light goes off.

XXX

"Are you sure that brother of yours isn't lurking around?" I ask tersely, as Seishirou-san slides a hand into my shirt through the open collar.

"He isn't here, Subaru-kun," he replies, from where's he's standing behind the sofa I'm seated on. I lean back against his stomach and stare out at the night through the window ahead.

"He mentioned something about tutoring Kamui in life sciences in the bedroom," Seishirou-san idly remarks and I jump as he laughs.

"Seishirou-san!"

He relents when I reach for my jacket that's lying on the arm-rest and pulls me back.

"Kamui-kun's virtue is safe at home. Fuuma-kun has a night class at school," he admits and I exhale, "Really, Subaru-kun, you worry about him too much."

It's impossible to tell when he's playing with me and when he's serious. It always has been.

"I have good reason to," I point out. I know he's thinking of everything that's happened so far to us and I am too.

"He's _fourteen_," Seishirou-san emphasizes anyway, and I lock my fingers with his own, idly staring at the color differences of our skin. He's slightly darker than me, but then, he sees more of the outside world than I do.

"I fail to understand why we're discussing my brother _now_ of all times," I can't help but to say and realize how snappish that sounds only when it's too late.

"Indeed," Seishirou-san says, suddenly all business and I realize how much he loves this; this supremacy over someone who's unsure and innocent of what to do in a situation; the complete mastery he has, no matter what it is over: human, non-human or object.

That's what makes him such a good hunter of the subjects who try to hide or flee.

Or, God forbid, fight.

"You are aware that falling in love with someone of your own gender is classified as an abnormality here, aren't you, Subaru-kun?"

I kiss his hand instead and Seishirou-san chuckles at the gesture as he traces my collar bones and the arteries running under the skin of my neck, deriving an unnatural amount of satisfaction from the fact that I'm shivering.

"I defend myself by stating that my so called 'abnormality' would have never manifested itself without _your _reciprocal abnormality," I say.

He is silent, but his hands aren't and I gasp without meaning to.

"How many other abnormalities are you willing to forgive?" I can't help but to ask as he keeps moving.

A pause.

"Nothing else," he whispers right into my ear and I bite my lip, "I swear that to you. If I came to know that you had even another one, I would kill you right here. And that applies to anyone."

I'm silent for so long that he finally lets me go and turns my chin to face him.

"Subaru-kun," he begins and I'm suddenly terrified for Kamui; that he knows, that he was never fooled by the eternal role I play in front of them all, that he will bring the whole army down on my sleeping brother this instant and torture him senseless and then-

"I suggest you take off something, so we can bypass this miserable excuse for foreplay. What do you think?"

XXX

Kamui is breathing too heavily when I sit on the bed next to him at night.

"Kamui," I start quietly and try to lay a hand on his head. He's turned away from me but tries to shrug my hand off.

"Go fuck yourself," he hisses in the dark but breaks down halfway, "I wish you were dead."

I lift the sheets a little and turn on the cracked lamp he knocked over earlier. He's curled himself into a ball, away from me, although he's hurting himself more that way. He has bandages on his back, waist and thighs and while his skin is greasy from all the ointments he's been applied with, he's feverish from eight injections and six stitches.

"I know," I reply and put a hand on his shoulder instead. I'm wearing gloves so that way, he won't have to actually touch me. He just shudders.

"What you did today could have had you killed," I say, "Seishirou-san is not someone you can-"

"He didn't care," My brother exhales weakly, trying to move away, but he can't, "I know what I did was wrong; I shouldn't have ignored him but he was all right with-"

"I'm not talking about that," I say and he falls silent. We listen to the myriad of sounds that can come out of a house at night, like it's a living being. I remember all the places we've stayed together; that filthy hostel room, then the used apartment and now the two-floor house and wonder where we'll be next.

"You know?" he asks finally.

"I know," I say, "It was far too obvious. And this is what I do for a living."

He shuts his eyes and swallows hard several times.

"What do you see behind us? Right now?" I ask. We both are facing the wall. But we're not alone here.

"A woman," Kamui replied simply, "She's standing outside the window, looking at me and you. And she has…cat whiskers on her face, I think. But that's not possible, is it?"

"It's possible. And it's the truth. She was one of the subjects at the facility," I admit, "The man who was supposed to maintain her tormented her and killed her later when he thought he would be found out."

A highly censored version, but it'll do for a boy of thirteen.

"Dead? She isn't alive?"

"No."

"So, she's a-"

He lets himself trail off and his back heaves a little as he tries to regain his control.

"Ni-san, is that why today, you…?"

"Yes."

"But _why_?"

Kamui tries to turn to face me but he groans and falls. I sit up and help him move, supporting his waist and head with my hands until he can lie down again on his other side. He stares over my shoulder at what, for me, is just a fogged up window in the middle of summer.

For him, it's the start of a lifelong nightmare he will never be free of.

I try running my fingers through his sticky hair but he moves away irritably.

"Take it off," he snaps, looking at the glove I have on and I know he's forgiven me.

When I don't reply, he snatches it off impatiently and then stops. I try to look at it from his angle.

There are jagged slashes on my palm, a few inches long and in need of stitches because they're all still bleeding.

It's been made with a piece of glass. He recognizes it immediately.

"Why?" Kamui asks in horror, touching one and I flinch without meaning to. He wriggles away, scared. They're much deeper than the ones I scarred him with.

"I needed more blood," I say, lying down and stretching a little. We used to share a bed when he moved in with me, because the gun drills frightened him at night for the first year. Now staring at his soft features marred by pain and injury, I wonder if I'm the reason he's so easy to hurt.

The fogginess at the window gradually dissipates and Kamui relaxes next to me.

"I needed to hurt you so badly that they'd forget about what you saw. That they'd forget that you could be one of the subjects we cage and study and experiment on in that building I never let you visit, just for being slightly different."

I say it finally, wishing there were better words to explain myself, to justify my sin, but this is the best I can come up with.

"I don't understand."

"I had to make them all think about something else besides what you saw. It was the only thing I could do for you at the time," I go on, "But I didn't want to hurt you. I never did, but I had to show a doctor injuries serious enough to believe. So I added some of my own blood to your face when you passed out."

Kamui just takes another breath with difficulty.

"I'm so sorry," I say. I think he's going to swear at me again, but he says something worse.

"It's okay," he whispers, "They don't know the truth, right?"

"You're safe with me," I tell him firmly. It's the answer to a different question, but he's still too young to realize that. He just slides into sleep and I watch over his rest.

XXX

"_There was a rather intriguing system in our past, Sumeragi-san," I say, leaning back in the chair I've taken without being invited. _

_Subaru stands with his arms crossed, waiting, his face dead. Kamui is sitting on the stairs behind him, watching the proceedings so quietly that I doubt his brother knows he's there. There are things I notice about Kamui when we're together these days, whether it's alone or in a crowd. They're very subtle things, like the way he can't ever hold my stare, push a conversation past superficial greetings and how he keeps flushing when I look at him. I'm sure Sumeragi-san is well aware of this, even he pretends not to see a thing._

_Now, Kamui sits at the top of the darkened stairs, resembling a nighttime raccoon raiding the trash bins._

_I knew that stairs were important when related to Kamui. Everyone had heard of the story; the way Sumeragi-san had privately taken his brother to his room, in their old house, right after his promotion and slashed him with glass and nearly killed him for not listening to a superior who repeatedly called out to him._

_Seishirou Ni-san still thought it was funny. It had been a little over three years ago._

"_Fuuma-kun," Subaru says, bringing me back to the present._

"_I learned about it when I was in school last year," I go on, stretching out my legs. Knee-high leather boots can get rather restrictive at times. I look forward to seeing Kamui drowning in a pair of them if his brother enlists him for service._

_I highly doubt his ability to survive the first roll call._

_Kamui is wearing a thick black jacket even though it's just barely into autumn, with blue jeans and sneakers. He's started to adopt his brother's ways and is wearing soft black gloves, twisting the fingers of them carelessly while he listens in, his eyes going between me and Subaru._

"_In that system," I continue, "Individuals in society thought to be…insane, dangerous or disabled, were rounded up by specialists who considered their abnormalities as harmful to the rest of the population."_

"_Forgive me, but I fail to see the relevance of this," Sumeragi-san says dryly. Kamui twitches behind him._

"_I'm coming to it," I assure and feel a little thrill when Kamui catches my look and then turns to the wall; this will be so much more effective with him there._

"_The army was called in to deal with the situation in the past," I resume, "They believed that these abnormalities were a manifestation of….how do I put it? Ah yes."_

_I smile at Sumeragi-san when I speak._

"_Their nature to usurp power in established societies and cause unrest through differences," I say, "They believed that the most efficient way to deal with this problem was to teach them all equally that their antics wouldn't be entertained. They were all systematically taught their place in the world."_

"_I think you understand what I mean, Sumeragi-san. Men, women and children were all subjected to it. They were all shown that they had no right over what happened…even to their own bodies."_

_For a second, Subaru looks furious, but the next instant, he is as unemotional as ever._

"_I wonder, Sumeragi-san," I conclude, "if we lived in those times and the army came for your younger brother, to teach him…would you allow them, those others, to touch him like that?"_

_Kamui flinches when I mention him but can only watch mutely. His eyes are on his elder brother, waiting for the reply that will rule his hypothetical fate._

"_Or else," I offer, since choices are always more delectable in situations like these, "Would you hold your brother down against the floor and perform that task on his body yourself, first?"_

_I give it a pause for some dramatic effect._

"_Would you…be his salvation?"_

_Subaru takes three steps towards me but Kamui weakly breathes out his elder brother's name before he can control himself. Subaru whips around to see the sixteen-year-old standing behind him on the stairs, gripping the handrail to keep himself upright and his eyes go wide._

_He begins to go up to him instead but doesn't finish, because the boy runs down the stair first, trying to flee past both of us before he loses control. However, Subaru seizes him and stops him, holding his brother close._

_He wraps his arms tightly around Kamui and I see that the younger one is trembling in his grip. I frown._

_An interesting reaction to a simple joke._

"_Get out," Subaru orders me, not letting go of Kamui, "I don't ever want to see you near him again. Do you understand me?"_

_I bow and leave. I leave the door wide open on the way out, just to make it more pleasurable and catch sight of Subaru's murderous expression before he turns and tries to soothe his terrified younger brother instead. Kamui is clutching onto the front of his shirt and asking him something desperately, while Subaru just shushes him softly and puts a finger to Kamui's lips to quiet him down. He helps his shivering younger brother sit down on a couch, but when he tries to take Kamui by the shoulder again, his brother flinches away, completely revolted by the gesture._

_Subaru pulls his hand back as if he's been scalded and stares at Kamui in shock. Kamui looks horrified at his own action and tries to reach out to him but the damage has been inflicted already._

_Subaru then comes over to slam the door in my face._

_Seishirou Ni-san will certainly enjoy this anecdote._

_XXX_

_When Sumeragi-san orders his twelve-year-old brother to get undressed and then lie on the bed with intimidating metal devices, implements and screens and electrodes circling it, the boy takes a deep breath and looks up at his brother._

"_Kamui," Sumeragi-san says carefully, "Did you hear what I said?"_

"_We'll assess him for 210 out of the standard 367 abnormalities," I say and my superior smiles cheerily at Kamui who pulls off his shirt so slowly that he reminds me of a model in an advertisement who's trying to look seductive. Sumeragi-san makes a move like he's going to pull up a chair to wait the test out._

"_You can come back in another few hours," my associate tells Sumeragi-san firmly enough that he gets the message._

"_Is that necessary?" He asks me, ignoring my superior, "Isn't supervision allowed?"_

"_It's better to have as less people in the room as possible," I say, unwillingly, feeling grinning eyes burning holes into my head. A total lie._

"_Ni-san," Kamui begs, clinging to the railing, wanting him to stay, but too bashful to ask._

_Sumeragi-san just regards his brother for a moment before leaving. He has no other choice._

_I give Kamui the necessary relaxants and sedatives until he's almost asleep and then the two of us start to hook him up to begin the computerized tests. He's so modest that I pull a sheet for his privacy._

_We take the samples together and watch each category get wiped off the digital list as the test is conducted. It's a monotonous process and I wait for a red mark or a yellow one to come up sooner or later, but so far, he's pure._

"_He's beautiful, isn't he?" my associate asks after an hour._

_Standing up and pulling off the latex glove, he begins to run a hand over Kamui's slim body, starting at his delicate waist and displacing the sheet as he does._

_The boy stirs uneasily in his sleep and calls out for his brother._

"_Kigai-san," I reprimand him but he doesn't stop the obscenity._

"_His eyes are purple," he goes on thoughtfully, "His brother's are green. How is that?"_

"_God works in mysterious ways," I say distractedly as he continues with his attentions on the boy, leaning over him and encasing the twelve-year-old in his shadow. _

_I understand the meaning for his popular nickname now. They call him 'The Devil.' _

_I may be a nameless junior nurse in this facility but I'm well aware of what I have to know. And I know of Sumeragi-san's formidable reputation. Maybe that's why Kigai-san finds pleasure in breaking those carefully drawn boundaries Sumeragi-san has set down around Kamui to keep him safe here._

"_Sumeragi-san is fortunate to have Kamui-chan all to himself, don't you think?" he asks at last, "I don't understand how he controls himself from ravaging him every night."_

"_Kamui is his _brother_," I say, totally revolted._

"_Does it make a difference?" Yuuto-san asks, but doesn't cease the motions of his fingers even while he speaks, "When we can kill the people closest to us, why can't we love them too?"_

"_Kigai-san," I begin, resisting the urge to vomit, "Please…"_

"_Oh, my apologies. Do you have an objection?" he asks, seemingly surprised._

_I'm trembling but I can't do a thing here; I have to send the money I get to a family outside the premises and without me, they're destitute. _

"_No," I say finally._

"_Sumeragi-san needs to learn that danger comes from within. He may be rising, but what can he do for the army, for real, when he can't even open his eyes?" Yuuto-san asks, smiling. _

_I can do nothing but look away._

XXX

"I lost another tooth, Ni-san!" Kamui says proudly, coming up to where I'm speaking with Seishirou-san. He holds the tiny white fang with his fingers, like it's a diamond. It's the first tooth he's losing while living with me.

I want to grab him, tickle him until he's screaming for mercy and then tell him about the tooth fairy and hide money and candy under his pillow at night to hear him gasping in wonder in the morning, but I can't.

"Go clean up the blood and throw that thing away," I order lazily and turn my back on him.

XXX

"_Here's the report," he says and hands the printed sheet to Sumeragi-san another hour later as I proceed to rouse Kamui, who after the strenuous series of tests, is trying to fight off sleep._

_He won't remember a thing of what took place in here._

_He sits up and looks at his elder brother expectantly, who ignores him and scans the report. I know that the score is perfect. Kamui doesn't even have one abnormality. Sumeragi-san was reluctant to let Kamui take the test but was forced to do so by the authorities and now that it's over, his conscience can be cleared._

_Finally, Sumeragi-san sighs and smiles gently at Kamui._

_He cups his anxious brother's cheek with his hand and turns his face to look up at him._

"_I'm proud of you," he says and Kamui flushes under the intensity of his brother's gaze. He looks down, smiling slightly and evidently pleased._

_He brings up his own hand to touch his brother's and curls their fingers together._

_Kigai-san smiles even wider._

_XXX_

"Have you ever had something that crawls put down your shirt?" Fuuma asks me during dinner at our house and I jump. Subaru doesn't bother to look up from his plate but Seishirou-san studies his brother as if wondering if they're actually related.

"Because in school some time ago, a lizard fell down the back of my jacket," Fuuma continues, "It was hell, but there's a rumor that says if you can put up with that, you're finally good enough to be considered a man."

He smirks at me while Seishirou-san sighs wearily and he and my brother exchange a look. The sort of look that makes Subaru blush really hard, which I'll be teasing him about all night until he puts me in a headlock and drags me up to bed.

"So, Kamui," Fuuma says, ignoring the other two glowering at him for 'forgetting' to put in a 'kun' at the end, "Are you a man?"

And all of this because I got glasses. I glare at Subaru and he meets my gaze calmly before looking down to work on his food.

"I had a dozen worms stuffed into my ears," I snap at Fuuma, "Beat that."

Fuuma's jaw drops. He's seventeen but looks a lot younger at once, like a child who's been harshly disciplined.

"This is what happens when you try to show off, Fuuma-kun," Seishirou-san says cheerily and neatly spears something off of his younger brother's plate while he's distracted.

The person who puts his fork down is Subaru. Or more accurately, he drops it and it hits the table.

"Is this true?" he asks, quietly and I curse myself inside for being so stupid.

"Seriously?" Fuuma asks, grinning, "Are you sure you're not kidding?"

"It happened," I mutter, knowing that my ass is in serious danger.

"When did this happen?" Subaru repeats, turning to face me properly, "Kamui!"

"Subaru-kun," Seishirou-san warns him and puts down his chopsticks.

"At school," I say, feeling a little light-headed.

"Don't lie to me," Subaru snaps, "You have six people in the whole academy and you're capable of fighting all of them at once."

Fuuma coughs delicately at that and I feel Seishirou-san kick him under the table. I try to stifle a laugh but fail and Subaru looks furious.

"Excuse us, Subaru-kun," Seishirou-san says abruptly and with a single look from him, Fuuma meekly gets up, follows him out of the room and shoots me a thumbs-up on the way out.

My brother and I are alone in the dining room, but I know the others can hear everything that takes place in here.

"Tell me," Subaru orders. I look into his eyes and wonder at the fact that an hour ago, we were peaceably reading together.

I would've told him the truth but the way he says that, like I'm a goddamn subordinate he can take for granted, sends that little bolt of electricity through my stomach and I speak before I can think it over.

_XXX_

"Ni-san, may I be permitted to use the restroom downstairs?"

Kamui is usually silent around others so I realize that if he's asking me, it must mean that he's been waiting to go for the last three and a half hours, since my meeting began.

Rain outside pounds against the glass windows and it makes the place feel dull and sleepy and grey, so I'm glad to have an excuse to look at him and speak to him.

He's kneeling on the floor, wearing my jacket and his sleeves are bulging because of the bandages under them. I try to imagine how he did that day, when he used the knife in the kitchen to make the fatal slashes on his arms. The incoherent apology note he left for me was stained with blood.

It's been tiring to watch him constantly ever since then. I know he won't ever do it again, but for the authorities, I have to write reports about my own brother and know each of his doings as if he's another animal or specimen instead of a fifteen-year-old boy.

"Of course you may," I say and he rises unsteadily. I know he specifically mentioned the downstairs restroom so that my other colleague knows where he is too, according to protocol.

"Wait," the man snaps and Kamui freezes, "Leave the door open when you're there."

My brother looks mortified at the very thought and instinctively wraps his arms around himself as he casts a quietly pleading glance at me. Thunder rumbling is the only answer he gets from the world.

"I'll stand outside instead," I try to offer, as a compromise, but the man shakes his head.

"I won't allow it," he says, "There are regulations to be followed, Sumeragi-kun, even if he is your brother."

Kamui swallows hard and stares at his bare feet.

"It's all right," I tell my brother, "Kamui, just get it over with. It's going to be fine."

Kamui shuffles to the bathroom and leaves the door open a crack.

"Wider!" the man calls and my brother hesitantly does it.

We can't see him, but we can certainly hear everything.

I'm silently burning with the rage that he's become numb to, because Kamui is _my _brother and I don't even have the power to stop him from being violated like this in my, no, _our_ own home.

Kamui returns, unable to look me in the eye.

"Did you wash your hands your hands with soap, Kamui-chan?" the man teases and I want to kill him with the very gun at my belt. Instead, I go to the kitchen so I can fill Kamui a glass of water to drink and press it into his fingers, mentally pleading that he won't lose himself until we're alone again.

Just a few more minutes. For me.

And although it may be impossible, I know he's heard me, because he obeys.

It storms outside.

XXX

Fuuma is the one who holds ice to my cheek with his bare hands and helps me sit up. I grab onto his arms and I feel a tear running down my face as he supports me. He scrapes my glasses off the ground but they're chipped.

I'm glad. I'm never wearing them again.

"You deserved that," he tells me, as I crush the material of his sweater. Subaru is nowhere to be seen and I'm still a little disoriented.

"Where is-"

"The next room. Talking with Ni-san. Don't worry."

The pain goes down after a while and we stay there, kneeling on the floor together, our dinner still unfinished on the table above.

"You're lucky Sumeragi-san is your brother," Fuuma continues, "Seishirou Ni-san would've made sure I wouldn't walk for a month if I ever spoke like that. But Sumeragi-san is scary when he's mad."

He frowns at me then and I try to angrily wipe my eyes dry.

"I wasn't lying," I say, "When I was kidnapped, they put worms in my ears. Six of them in each one."

It's definitely not the priority now, but I somehow want him to know that it happened…that I wasn't lying.

"Whatever for?"

For the first time he looks sickened.

"They said I'd grown up my whole life listening to lies and poison here," I continue, remembering it all, "They said they had to clean my ears of everything I'd been taught. And so, there were worms. And every time I tried to run, they added one more."

I try to smile at him.

"So am I a man?"

He shakes his head.

"Yeah. I guess. Actually, fuck it, I'm going to hurl."

And the tears refuse to stop for me after that. It's ironic, because I'm laughing at the same time and have just been declared a man.

"He _slapped_ you, Kamui," Fuuma explains patiently, like I can't understand, "He's done much worse to you, if you remember."

"That was different," I say, leaning back against him. And it was. He strokes my hair and although the gesture is the same as the Subaru has done for me countless times when I was sick or crying or injured, it frightens me because whether Fuuma or my brother touches me like this, it sends a thrill of forbidden pleasure through me and raises the hairs at the back of my neck.

"Not really," Fuuma says easily and I stare at him, temporarily lost, until I get my thoughts back.

I jerk away when I feel his mouth over mine.

"Subaru is in the next room, you fool," I hiss as he slides his hands over my shoulders.

"He's with Ni-san," Fuuma mutters, "Believe me, we could do a lot of things in here and they wouldn't notice."

He reels me in for a harder kiss and I end up under him as he presses a hand to my sides, under my shirt and I half-heartedly respond.

He gives up when he sees that I'm too distracted and edgy for anything more.

"Both times he hurt you," Fuuma continues, "Sumeragi-san wasn't angry at you."

He lies down next to me, resting a head on my collar and follows the line of my eyes as I stare out to the next room.

He pauses.

"He was punishing himself."

Seishirou-san laughs in the next room and Subaru says something I can't hear. I watch the doorway, and I only realize Fuuma is kissing me again when he irritably nips at my lip before pulling away.

"I hope I won't have to ask you to choose between us two one of these days," he murmurs and then leaves me there.

XXX

The man leaves fifteen minutes later and the water is still untouched.

As soon as the door shuts, Kamui takes the glass and hurls it to the carpet, where it spills but doesn't shatter and he makes a motion like he's going to stamp on it with his bare feet or smash it with his hands.

I'm quick to drag him away and push him onto the stairs where I restrain him as he screams and swears at me and thrashes like an untamed animal, trying to rip the healing wounds open again and tries to bite himself repeatedly. I extend his arms away from his chest and hold him down by his elbows, so it feels as if I'm preparing him to be crucified. Lightning flashes through the darkened house, illuminating his face in jarring streaks and for an instant, I'm holding something that isn't human.

I let him scream himself out and kick and I'm unable to do anything but whisper comforting words into his hair…words that he doesn't hear, touches he doesn't want to feel, until he's nearly unconscious from his own exertion.

"Better?" I ask quietly, when he's not as hysterical.

Kamui shuts his eyes and whips his head to the side when I try to wipe a stray tear on his face.

"That wasn't even the beginning," he replies, but his voice is shivering as I fix the bandages and try to straighten his clothes.

"I know that," I say, "I'm sorry."

I lift him in my arms and carry him to bed.

XXX

**Author's Note:**

**Well, another chapter of 'Salvation' and I think it's pretty clear why this is rated M so far. I really don't know what came over me while I was writing this months ago for the first time….I do remember being really depressed, though. **

**Anyway, one tip to keeping the plot and timeline straight is to look at the ages of the characters. By doing that, everything else will set itself. Remember, Subaru is nine years older than Kamui, Seishiro is nine years older than Subaru, Fuuma is seventeen years younger than Seishirou and one year older than Kamui.**

**Please read and review. I treasure each review I get.**


	3. Sacrifice

**Chapter 3**

**Sacrifice**

He's taking an abnormal amount of time in the bathroom.

I knock.

"Kamui-chan?" I call out, "Are you all right?"

No reply.

"I'm coming in," I say through the wood and give him a few seconds. When silence is my only answer, I move.

I push against the door with my shoulder and break the cheap lock on the inside, expecting the worst.

Kamui is standing in the tub with tears running down his face and foam all over his lips, holding a toothbrush in one hand.

"What's wrong?" I ask, suddenly terrified. I'm seventeen, he's eight and I have no idea how to deal with things like this.

Kamui tries to talk but sends froth bubbles into the air and coughs.

"Wait," I instruct and fill a glass for him to rinse with. He does and I realize he's in the tub to brush his teeth, because he's too short to reach the sink.

"What's the matter?" I ask, taking him by his arm and wiping away his tears with my palm, "Do you miss home?"

He shakes his head.

"Are you ill?"

Another head shake.

"What is it? Please tell me."

"Your toothpaste hurts my mouth," he replies and then blushes.

…

…

"Oh," I say lamely, after a few seconds of staring, "I'm very sorry."

It's mint flavored, obviously too spicy for him, and as I look around my bathroom, I understand how many things in here are potentially fatal for a child; my razor, left out in the open, the medicine cabinet full of bottles of pills, a slippery floor with no mats, glass sliding doors, rusting iron bars and a toilet that's too big for him to use on his own.

"You can skip it for tonight," I inform him and guide him over the lip of the tub, "I'll order some milder toothpaste tomorrow, all right?"

"Okay," he says agreeably and I tuck him into bed after reading him a short story about a knight, a dragon and a princess off my laptop.

It strikes me that most other boys my age are watching porn right now.

XXX

_In the room, the boy is barely awake. He's sprawled on the bed, his shirt torn and there is blood all over his body and face. The reddened piece of glass is outside and things have been sent to the carpet here; books, a lamp, a bottle of water and a clock._

"_Subaru," he manages to get out and tries to lift an arm to reach for the door where his brother is outside at the phone and I marvel at that sort of loyalty. A loyalty to a cause is something I can dedicate myself to, but a person? Another flawed human, whose whims can destroy you or save you at will? It's something I will never understand._

"_Your brother is waiting for a doctor," I inform him, coming to sit on the edge of the rumpled bed, "Lie still or you'll be in more pain."_

_I find a chipped glass rolled underneath the bed and fill it in the bathroom. Then I come back to tilt it carefully into his swollen mouth. He can barely swallow and then tries to speak._

"_What is it, Kamui-kun?"_

"_Please… forgive my rudeness, Seishirou-san," he said, fighting for breath._

"_There's nothing to apologize for," I tell him, "But why don't you tell me what happened?"_

_That's when it happens. His barely open violet eyes go normal and regain some of their alertness and wariness. _

"_I thought I saw a cat at the top of the stairs," he admits._

"_A cat?"_

"_Yes. Black."_

"_In the house? Are you sure, Kamui-kun?"_

_He tries to laugh but winces._

"_That's why I was looking so hard," he says and smiles. His teeth are reddened._

_His brother has made him into a fine young man. He's given him the gift of a skill he himself does not possess. The ability to deceive others._

_When I look back, Kamui has fallen into an uncomfortable sleep and I leave him there._

_I exit the room to where Subaru-kun is inviting the doctor into the house. _

_Subaru-kun wants to save his brother. _

_Kamui wants to be with the ones he loves._

_This promises to be entertaining._

_So today, I'll let them both go._

_XXX_

I'm nearly asleep on his leg and the last song on our player is ending, when Subaru pulls his headset off and then gently unhooks mine too, from the multiple outlet port.

"Can we talk?" My brother asks and I sit up blearily.

"Sure," I say and wince because my voice is a little thick.

"How have you been managing the past few days?" he asks and I nod.

"It was fine. I missed you, though."

He doesn't have much to say to that and I see from his blood-shot eyes that he's still exhausted from the last trip.

"Fuuma came over," I blurt out and then want to kill myself when his eyebrow goes up at the lack of honorific.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. He helped me with some homework."

Subaru sighs so lightly I nearly miss it.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about what happened that day," he says. Instantly, I know what he's talking about; the question Fuuma asked Subaru, the one he never got to reply to because of me.

Would you be my salvation?

"It was nothing," I protest, "He was just joking."

"No," my brother says sharply, "He wasn't. You were upset."

My hands have a lot of lines on them; one of the new girls who joined school last term taught me how to palm-read the basic ones. My lifeline has a slash through it, almost as if it's a sign of-

"Kamui," Subaru says patiently and I look up at him.

"I want to know," I admit and he blinks.

"Know what?"

"What your answer would've been that day."

He takes me in with his eyes.

"That's disgusting, Kamui," he says resolutely and moves to get up but I'm faster, so I sit on his legs and he slumps back down and gives me a hard stare.

"I can push you off," he threatens.

I have to give him a pitying stare at that because we know each other too well. It's a ridiculous thing to do at my age, but it's the only way.

"What would you have done?" I ask again, planting my hands on the ground beside his knees.

"…."

"Subaru…"

"Would you trust me, if I told you right now that everything I do is for your own safety?" he challenges me and I back away a little.

"I know that already," I tell him, "I really do."

"Then, that's good enough, isn't it?"

"Would you hurt me so that someone else wouldn't do it?"

He looks angry again, like that time when I was thirteen, but this time, it's for real.

"I'm your _brother_," Subaru retorts, "Does that mean _anything_ to you, Kamui?"

I realize that what I'm doing to him is nothing short of psychological torture; I'm literally holding his head under the water and keeping him there while he chokes, until he gives me what I want.

"What would you do, if you had to make that choice for me, and you only had those two choices?" I say and he gazes at me for a whole minute before answering.

"I would go with whatever you chose that day," he says coolly and I realize that I'm now the one being held underwater, "Your turn."

"No. I just wanted to hear your answer."

"And I want yours now."

"You'll get angry at me."

"Too late for that," he says tightly.

"I'd ask you to do it," I reply simply and look away, feeling myself go red.

"Why," he says finally, rather than asking, and I get off of him and kneel a little, feeling light-headed as a I do.

"Because if they ever find out about me," I say, "And they decide to kill me because of what I am-"

"Kamui-"

"I want you to be the one who does it for me."

"Why would you _ever_ ask that of me?" Subaru asks and for the first time, I hear the anguish in his voice and make myself shrug.

"Fuuma told me that it's better to die at the hands of someone you love."

Subaru shuts his eyes and runs a hand through his hair.

"And this came up in conversation because…?"

"His brother told him."

Subaru waits for a while and then, comes to a decision and looks at me.

"I agree," he says and I jump.

"What?"

"I will go to any extent to keep you alive here," My brother says, "And I mean _anything_. But if worst come to worst and there's no alternative left, I will be the one to end your life. Do you agree to that?"

"Yeah, sure," I say, curling up beside him and plugging in the head-phones and flicking through the song options on the device, "What do you want to listen to next?"

Subaru studies me and then groans.

"Unbelievable," he says and then pulls his own headset back on. Halfway through the third song, he rests a hand on my hair gently.

"Don't mind them," he whispers, so I relax against him and try to ignore the dead boy and girl watching us from around the corner.

"Twins," I tell him and he thinks for a minute before nodding.

"They died yesterday morning," Subaru breathes back, following the line of my eyes and seeing nothing, "Don't disturb them."

"Tell them that. They're bothering me."

"They died a terrible death, Kamui, in another department of the facility," Subaru answers calmly, "They're probably still in shock from it. If watching us gives them some peace in this hell, let them take it."

The girl stares at me. Her face is scalded. The boy is playing with the hem of her skirt. He giggles and I see his tongue is black and swollen. Poisoned.

"Why don't you do something about this?" I ask, staring at them.

"I can't," Subaru answers tiredly and with those two words and the tone they're delivered in, I understand that he must have tortured himself over this for years ever night after feeding me, reading me stories and putting me to bed when I still didn't know a thing.

"They'll take you away if I try," he says, "And I told you I'm not letting that happen."

"You'll let them die and do nothing?" I ask in disbelief and I see that this is another part of my brother; the one who can authorize experiments that cause screams and death, the one who can kill a person with a few expert blows, the one who can torture a creature, human like himself, or non-human, like me, for as along it takes until he gets bored of it.

He brought me here to keep me away from a world where people from here break into houses there, force inspections, impose medical tests and randomly arrest and execute. In the midst of all the danger is where we're truly safe

"I don't care anymore," he admits, "You're the only who matters now."

XXX

_Kamui starts to cry four minutes into the State Level Swimming Competition. He's not even eight and before he can actually begin to weep, his brother plucks him out of the pool and hoists the soaked boy into his arms, talking to him and smiling, until he calms down._

_He comes over to my stall to buy an ice cream for them to share and pays quickly._

"_Is he tired?" I ask and Kamui grabs his ice-cream cone to lick at it eagerly._

"_Apparently not," Subaru-san says and watches him with so much warm affection in his eyes that I wonder at how Kamui fails to notice it._

_I never forgot that scene. They returned when Kamui was fourteen. He finished every single event and won something in nearly every category, with the exception of two. Subaru-san was in the army then and some of his officials had come to watch._

_That wasn't good enough for them._

_When Kamui waded to the lip of the pool, too exhausted to even pull himself over it, Subaru-san came over to him and kicked water into his brother's face, as the officers all laughed and Kamui coughed. _

_He met my eyes and looked away. That was the last time I saw them there._

XXX

"Are you comfortable?" Subaru asks and I nod shakily, lying back against the pillow.

I hold one of his hands as tight as I can and he squeezes back. He sits beside me and we stay there for a while in that position until I can't stand it.

"Please," I beg, "Subaru."

He looks down at me and then slides another hand under my back, through my ripped shirt and finds the spinal cord. He stops there, as if re-thinking all of it, but then counts vertebrae and locates the one he wants.

"It's going to be fast," he tells me, "You won't feel any pain. I swear."

"Thank you," I say and he shuts his eyes for a moment.

XXX

Subaru aims the gun and shoots me in the face.

I scream and scream and when I wake up, he's beside me in the bed, trying to calm me down and it's dark and only we both are there, but I can't stop crying. Then I see that the bottom of his shirt and the front of my pants are wet.

He keeps telling me it's all right while he gives me a bath but it's not, because I'm eight and normal eight-year-olds shouldn't pee in the night or suck their thumbs, both of which I now do.

"Am I abnormal?" I ask him and he looks like I hit him.

"You're absolutely fine," he says and pulls me to lie down beside him, "I'm sure even Fuuma-kun wets the bed every now and then."

"No, he doesn't! Fuuma would never do that! You're being mean!"

He tries not to smile and we fall asleep again. When we wake up in the morning, he starts laughing again even though I haven't been sucking my thumb.

I've been sucking on his.

XXX

_He's obviously never held a gun before, but seen others do it countless times. That's why he uses his other arm to support the one holding the weapon and his wrist is locked tight to receive the hard thrust of the recoil, should he choose to fire, even if his aim is a little off. The others on his side are there, backed up against a wall, the highest officers on the army premises, where we intend to make the starting point of our mission._

_We've freed three cells of the tortured prisoners and released them, but most of them are traumatized and disoriented, half mad with extended pain and abuse. We should have let them go and shot the line of people lined up here, but for this purple-eyed thing that's come out of nowhere._

"_Stand down," the boy says, not taking his eyes off of me. I ignore him, to disconcert him. Until he makes a move, his allies cannot make theirs._

"_Keep an eye on where he's looking," I say in my own tongue to my comrades as I raise my hands. If I can find out the reason, the person, who's making him act this recklessly instead of hiding away like he should have, I can end this colossal mess before it escalates._

_The boy is unsure of what to do now that three people are at his mercy before him._

"_Tell him to kneel, Kamui-kun," someone instructs him from the wall and the boy nods._

"_As he says," he snaps, steadying the gun at me. He's somehow surmised I'm the leader and is using that to his advantage, although my men have guns aimed at the people lined against the wall._

_Kamui. _

_What a beautiful name._

"_Kamui," I say in his native language, "We are working for a divine cause here. Do you think a death or two by your hand alone will stop my remaining men from putting a bullet through each and every one of the people before your eyes?"_

_The bait works._

"_The third one from the left," my comrade says quickly and I turn to face the one who Kamui's eyes flicked at._

_A young man in his twenties. Green eyes. Uniform. Hands raised. Black hair messy from struggling. He looks nonchalant but he's been given away._

_I see how to do this now._

"_Kamui, if you pull that trigger, you will kill yourself," I say as casually as I can to him and smile widely at the older man, telling him that he's been caught._

"_Don't listen to him," the man with the green eyes orders Kamui, understanding what I am about to do. He says it in English to ensure obedience and the boy nods feverishly, not shifting his hold on the gun, his eyes fixed on me, waiting for a jump or a strike. But that's not my idea at all._

"_Kamui," I repeat, "You're holding the gun backwards."_

_He's just a child so I don't blame him when he looks down instantly to check, because the feel of the weapon is still new to him and either way, he wouldn't know._

_The man at the wall shouts out a warning, my own comrades lunge at him and Kamui barely side-steps them by a few inches._

"_Get him!"_

_Kamui drives his fist into someone's jaw but he's seized from behind and is caught by someone who's on the wall, another teenager who's holding him protectively._

_The older boy grabs the gun, with Kamui's hand still tangled around it, raises it and fires a shot that breaks the thick glass casing on a fire alarm ten feet away. Unlike Kamui, this one has been trained and well._

_It's a much more effective strategy than trying to wait for one of us to pull out a gun and start a fight or killing one of us and leaving others behind. The noise is tremendous and the other authorities will be on us in seconds. We are three; we cannot kill them all in the time we have left._

_Our only option is to escape._

_But we need a shield to ensure our safe passage._

_I point my own gun at the man with green eyes and Kamui jerks like a fish on a hook._

"_Come to me, Kamui" I say simply._

"_No!" the green-eyed man snarls at the boy, "Don't move."_

_The teenager from behind holds Kamui even harder and the boy tries to elbow him viciously, but he's too slight for it._

"_Kamui," I say again and he screams and writhes when I undo the safety catch audibly, aiming at the older man's forehead._

"_Subaru!"_

"_You're crying for a man who kills people with so-called abnormalities for a living, Kamui. Do you really think I won't do it?" I taunt him._

"_Don't let go of him, Fuuma," Subaru commands the older teenager._

"_I won't, sir."_

_Kamui lurches wildly, swearing, ready to sob in frustration._

"_Kamui, I order you to stay where you are."_

_The young man is too calm in the face of death and focuses on the boy rather than himself, but he's not being heard._

"_If you disobey me, Kamui," the man says at last, "I won't look at you again."_

_That works. Kamui freezes and I know that any more delay will result in our deaths._

"_He's dead," I say cheerfully and that's when Kamui kicks the other boy's shin with the sharp edge of a boot and gets a chance to escape as Fuuma groans and loosens his grip for half a second._

_Kamui hits the floor and before he can gather himself, one of my men grab him by the shirt and haul him clear, forcing him to stand. _

_I look between Kamui, stricken and distraught, and Subaru, not even able to get in the way and save the boy. I don't what they are, but it fails to matter to me. There exists a bond and one that I will enjoy twisting to shreds as excruciatingly as possible. That's all that is of relevance._

_I grip Kamui by the throat and turn his face to the others._

"_Take a good look," I say to the young man, who's breathing hard, his jaw clenched, "You're never going to see these eyes again."_

_Kamui's reaches out to him almost dazedly, as if caught in a dream he wants to escape, but I slap his hand away. I drag him along with me and we leave._

XXX

I lay a hand on Kamui's shoulder as I speak. It's a minute gesture; one that's used to calm a disturbed child of eight who's rocking back and forth in his chair as I carry on a conversation with someone else.

It's not normal to be hyperactive here. You could get examined for it.

I mentally ask him to understand and stop that and he goes stiff under my hand, as if considering rebelling but slowly stills himself and I sigh and pat his head in reply, reminding myself to get him something as a treat on the way home.

Three hours of perfect silence in front of my superiors. For me.

I really look up to him.

_XXX_

_I slam open the door to see Sumeragi kneeling at Kamui's level, gripping the boy hard by the wrist as he squirms and tries to free himself._

"_Ni-san, I'm sorry-"_

"_Listen to me," he says in a quiet voice, not noticing me entering his dorm room, "I don't want you to ever do that again."_

_Kamui's face is red and he's straining not to cry because to do so at age eight is a shame. A box of cigarettes lies on the floor like it's been unceremoniously knocked out of someone's hand and I understand._

"_Sumeragi-kun," I say and he lets go off his brother to face me, "They need you in one of the… experimental rooms."_

_Seeing Kamui there, I change 'dissection' to 'experimental' and Sumeragi shoots me a thankful look for that._

_The seventeen-year-old gets up and Kamui lets out a suppressed sob that he tries to cover with his hand. Sumeragi used to be a normal boy while he was still a cadet in his early teens but now, he is become closer to an adult day by day and it scares his younger brother._

_He sighs but makes Kamui look up even if his own fingers are beginning to tremble at the thought of the place where he soon has to go._

"_I'm sorry if I frightened you," he says softly to the boy, "I was just scared that you would get hurt."_

"_I won't smoke," Kamui says quickly, "I promise, Ni-san. I'm sorry I tried."_

_Sumeragi shuts his eyes, torn between whether to stay here and soothe the child or come with me and follow orders. In the end, he drops a light kiss on Kamui's forehead._

"_Don't disturb the cadets," he shoots at his brother as he turns to leave, "I'll be back tonight."_

_We leave together and I can tell he's worrying about what took place back there._

"_Stop smoking," I tell him, "You just started a few weeks ago. Can't be too hard."_

"_That won't help," he says, "Everyone else here does it."_

"_Kamui-chan doesn't follow their example, idiot," I mutter, dragging him with me so we're not late, "He follows yours."_

_Subaru stops in revelation and I jerk him forward._

_I don't understand why Seishirou-sama likes him so much. He really is stupid._

XXX

"Are you proud of me?" Kamui asks as he tightens the straps on his boots for the umpteenth time. He looks older than he is, in the standard army black and white uniform, scarf and belt, which, thankfully, is empty for now, without any weapons adorning it.

For now.

"I'm always proud of you," I say, "But this takes second."

Kamui frowns, trying to think.

"What was first time?"

"You tell me."

"I don't know," Kamui admits, flattening his gelled down hair, "I think this is the first useful thing I'm doing since I got here. The only thing worth noticing."

"Getting into the army is difficult," I agree, "But you've done something much harder."

"What? Stop playing with me, Subaru."

I smile at him.

"I'll take a photo of you and then we'll leave for the ceremony, all right?"

"Subaru!"

XXX

_He's shivering when he gets out of the car. He wants to get away from here, or scream or fall down and let someone carry him, but he can't. Someone else puts a hand on his shoulder and leads him to the podium on the stage. They tilt the mike down for his height and Kamui looks down at the paper he's been given to read, while cameras click, reporters scream their questions and video cameras are thrust at him._

_He reads slowly, enunciating every word with care, never wavering or stumbling. His face is impassive through it all, but he ends with a light smile after talking about the experience with every single graphic detail left in, so the bloodthirsty masses will hunt other rebels down for us. It's a trick to change the allegiances of the people and Kamui is their tragic hero, even if he fails to realize it himself. Eerily composed, he thanks his helpers, transport officers, security guards, friends and family for their guidance and support through his ordeal._

_When he gets off the stage, we make a protective barrier around him, just as instructed. He sees me and mouths my name instinctively but I shake my head and he holds his silence. He's had no one to talk to for the whole course of the 18-day kidnapping that ended with every perpetrator being shot dead before him, with the exception of one who was taken alive for questioning._

_They've made sure to dress Kamui in full-length trousers and a sweater while a trench coat hangs open around his shoulders. Its impossible to tell what they did to him while he was in captivity, but I heard that he refuses to let anyone medically examine him except his brother and no one was able to physically force him to do it_

_I wonder…_

_Kamui tries to crane his neck a little to search for his brother in the crowd of paparazzi but he can't spot him there until I discreetly catch his eye and jerk my chin at where they'll be. We walk to the car, shoving past the press and there, Ni-san and Sumeragi-san are waiting for him._

_Kamui jerks like he wants to run to him, just sprint the last thirty or so feet to reach him, but resists the temptation and never changes his pace. He looks at his brother like he's another passer-by. Sumeragi-san studies him the same way._

_It's like watching two terrible actors in a soap opera._

_When they reach, Kamui reverently kisses his brother's hand and bows to Ni-san._

_Subaru just takes him by the arm and helps him into the car. He breathes a quick question, to which Kamui just shakes his head and replies softly, still smiling as if assuring him that he's fine and it's all right. The media nearly pounce on him, to get a photo of that rare interaction, and Ni-san shields them both as Subaru follows Kamui. Then he gets in himself._

_He shoots me a look, as if promising me a good story tonight. I cockily salute him and he smirks before he shuts the door and the car drives away into the afternoon._

XXX

"_I'm not hungry, Subaru, really," Kamui says tearfully, but I shove him down and sit on his legs as I force-feed him. _

_He needs to have gained three pounds by the end of the month and if he doesn't, the medical authorities will institutionalize him themselves. _

_He doesn't understand._

_It's a World War to get through a few spoons of watery soup and when I let him up, there are bruises forming around his mouth and he's shuddering after the fight._

_I seize him by the upper arm and drag him towards myself again and he shouts, trying to scratch and kick. One of his fingernails makes a raw line over my cheek, but I force a small chunk of bread into his mouth and hold his nose and mouth shut until he swallows it._

"_You can make this easy for yourself," I tell him as he flails, "If you eat, I'll let you go."_

_He chokes suddenly, arching up against me and I release him before he suffocates. He stares at with that familiar look of hurt and terror mixed in together so inextricably that I can't see where they diverge._

_I can't take this anymore._

I walk into the house, preparing myself for another psychological and physical battle since it's nearly lunchtime and to my shock, Fuuma is sitting on the sofa with Kamui next to him.

The older boy goes on about something and Kamui just listens, not saying anything, not really answering him but he is hearing and that's good enough for Fuuma, who licks at an ice cream cone and keeps talking about school and girls and basketball.

I wonder if that's a better strategy than coaxing and ripping answers out of my brother every time he's this unresponsive.

"Have a taste," Fuuma offers the chocolate chip flavored dessert and I stay quiet at the doorway, watching them.

"I'm fine."

It's the first thing Kamui has said aloud in the last three days and his voice shows it.

Fuuma winces. "You really need it," he insists but Kamui shakes his head and turns away, stubbornly crossing his arms across his front.

Fuuma sighs but then, he scrapes a generous amount of ice cream onto his finger and smears it over Kamui's mouth as he starts and tries to protest.

"Try it," he orders sternly and my brother obediently licks his lips and swallows gingerly.

"Well?"

"It's all right," he admits grudgingly.

"You know, Kamui," Fuuma remarks casually with that feral grin of his, "You looked really sexy when you did that. Sumeragi-san is very lucky he lives with you."

For the hundredth time, I find myself wondering what my brother sees in this boy.

"Shut up," Kamui snaps, hitting his arm, but his mouth is twisting upwards and I don't think we'll be fighting today.

XXX

He considers me lying down for a minute and opens his mouth as if to say something more, but then changes his mind and asks something else.

"Are you having a nap?" he asks curiously, because it's afternoon and in all our years together, I've never slept during the day unless I was sick. But things are spiraling out of control anyway, so what does one more change do?

"I am," I say, "What did you want?"

"Can I stay here with you?"

"You can, but what were you asking before-"

"Later."

"Kamui-"

"I promise I'll tell you when we wake up again, okay? I don't want to talk about it now."

I kiss his forehead on an impulse and he looks shocked because it's been years since I've done that, but he shuts his eyes and draws me near.

We fall asleep with our arms wrapped around each other and get up with our legs still entangled.

I wake up first, though, and stare at his sleeping face while I realize we're reverting back to childhood, remembering and reliving those careful and intimate touches of affection passed between us then, when were both just children.

From adulthood, back to childhood, back to infancy and back to…

…nothing at all.

Death.

Lifelessness.

Non-existence.

And I know what he will ask me when he opens his eyes.

Until then, I take in his form with my own sight, learning and memorizing my own brother so for the future, I will have a new picture of him in my mind forever.

_XXX_

"_Are the car windows tinted, Seishirou-san?" Kamui asks me, running a finger idly over the frosted black glass as the car quietly whirs its way through the roads and gets closer to the official premises where his home is._

_His seatbelt is undone. Subaru does it for him and when I smile at him, he looks at me, flushes and then looks away._

_Kamui is too disoriented to notice a thing._

"_They are tinted, Kamui-kun," I assure him, "You are riding in one of the army's most well-protected vehicles. You can be at ease here."_

"_Thank you," Kamui breathes._

_Then he clings to his brother and breaks down into tears. He's unable to stop even though he's losing his breath and eventually sobs his way into muteness, crushing the material of his brother's jacket and clenching teeth over his lips. Subaru holds him close, trying to shush him and talk to him, calming words that only Kamui can hear, soothing touches reserved only for him, but to no avail. Finally, Subaru-kun shoots me a helpless look. _

"_The media might be outside the house too," he says and I nod, "I don't want them to see him like this."_

_I pull out the syringe and vial kept ready in the first-aid kit. Subaru rolls up Kamui's sleeve and whispers something into his ear as Kamui digs his nails into his palm to keep himself from screaming out loud._

_Only I hear the next things he says to Kamui. And I know he will never say them again before anyone else._

Thank you.

_That's natural. If it weren't for Kamui's defiance and his time spent in hell, Subaru-kun would have been killed that day. But what he says next is completely irrelevant, totally inappropriate to the situation and makes no sense at all. I don't understand it._

I love you.

_Kamui goes deathly still in Subaru's arms and some of the tension drains from his form as his eyes widen._

_Subaru caresses Kamui's face tenderly after I inject him and gently rocks his brother to sleep._

_Fuuma-kun will enjoy hearing about this for more than one reason._


	4. Intoxicated

**Chapter 4**

**Intoxicated**

_Kamui gets his certificate for what will be his last school year and then climbs off the stage, frantically searching for Subaru in the audience. He finds him in the second row and goes up to him. The auditorium is dark, full of people and no one is paying any attention to them so Subaru straightens his brother's tie. He makes place for him and they watch the rest of the students receive their awards for the academic year. The younger boy leans his head on the elder one's shoulder and they observe the proceedings peaceably. _

_They move out when the chairs are being cleared for the following dance and Kamui joins Subaru on a bench against the wall as people head to the school bathrooms to change, buy something from the stalls or go outside into the summer night for refreshments._

_The dance begins after fifteen minutes and Kamui is quickly bored. He leans back carelessly but notices Subaru next to him and checks himself, un-crossing his legs and sitting up straight, imitating his elder brother's immaculate posture._

_That action drags Subaru out of his reverie and he turns to ask Kamui something in surprise, which makes his brother flush and shake his head furiously as he involuntarily pouts._

_At age seventeen, Kamui obviously does not like to dance._

_Subaru smiles again and pulls Kamui to his feet as the boy splutters in surprise and tries to protest. He takes Kamui by the hand to the dance floor, finding an empty space close to the centre and placing a hand on his waist while Kamui looks decidedly ill. Subaru raises Kamui's arm up then and guides his brother through a spin as best as he can, catching him when he nearly trips. He teaches him that simple move a few more times and soon, the clumsiness is replaced with a little more agility._

_Kamui looks enthralled but slides into the unfamiliar motions quicker than I expected. Subaru, at twenty-six, is a lot more graceful than he is, but keeps his pace slow so Kamui can catch up. They move together despite a slight height difference, Kamui's feet scuffing his brother's boots every now and then but Subaru is patient through it all and they're beginning to get noticed by the crowd._

_Others move aside to give them room or watch benevolently as Kamui laughs and Subaru playfully twirls him again and again, not bothering to acknowledge the friendly whistling or hoots. _

_No one but us know that Kamui will be tried and sent for an execution in exactly four days._

_Subaru takes it a level higher and Kamui responds eagerly…following him, trusting him, complementing him. They come close to each other without the reservation of friends, acquaintances or even lovers and move in tandem as two people who know each and every one of the other's secrets, flaws and strengths, so nothing stops them from giving it their all. _

_Like they've realized that the Earth and the Universe is theirs alone. _

_As if sensing the change, the tempo of the music rises._

_They dance more swiftly now and I can see that they're both exhilarated by it…exhilarated by the dance, exhilarated by the lightning-fast touches and exhilarated by their own longing, ensnared in a daring rapture of movement and music that no one else will ever comprehend or re-create, as something first meant to be childish and affectionate takes a drastic turn towards the seraphic._

_Subaru suddenly yanks Kamui right up against himself and holds his brother tightly, with muted aggression in the movement, as if he wants to prove to the darkness wrapping around them that Kamui is his and his alone, that no one can mar him as long as he's with him. Kamui laughs again, pleased as he keeps on his feet and they continue their dance, its intensity steadily rising._

_The whole floor clears for them like the crowd is of one mind and I watch, feeling chills run up and down my spine in spite of myself._

_Subaru looks around the hall defiantly at all the eyes trained on them that watch with a myriad of expressions; condescending eyes that simply take them in and judge without sight or knowledge, each person coming to another new conclusion. They praise politely on the outside but shudder within at the sight of the condemned child and his brother._

_Smiling in something like satisfaction, Subaru stops suddenly and tenderly turns his brother's face towards himself and studies him fondly with a light smile, not bothering to hide the feeling the way he always does. Kamui meets his gaze, perplexed, not understanding the reason for the unrestrained adoration or even how to react to it in public. _

_Something happens then, that I never would've imagined as possible._

_Subaru leans in and forces his mouth against Kamui's slightly parted lips._

_It's a kiss born out of desperation and sorrow for the brother he will lose soon, the one he never really got to know; a sin committed in a moment of drunken madness that he will regret later but never forget. It's simply the ugly effect of nearly a decade of repression, where he was not allowed to express his affection for the most important person in his life._

_Kamui violently jerks in shock but after hesitating, he returns the kiss, rising a little on his feet._

_It starts out slowly, but then blood and desire take over and he kisses his brother almost wildly, with a heated passion that manages to disquiet even me. He roughly grips Subaru's hair while he scans the crowd, feeling the hatred, the absolute revulsion...aimed solely at them, but still unable to let go. Seeing his alarm, Subaru deepens their kiss and lightly caresses Kamui's back, watching his younger brother's eyes slip shut in pleasure._

_They're totally intoxicated…by each other. _

_Subaru is openly allowing everyone here to witness the intimacy._

_At last._

_There's silent disgust and softly indignant exclamations all around, but what more can they do to two despairing people who have only days left with each other?_

_Their actions proudly tell the worlds that their love is beyond everything; sanity, rationality, constraints, codes and fates that bind them down or try to tear them apart._

_Their actions tell the worlds that they will never yield._

_They break apart with an effort, still trapped in each other's arms and Kamui looks at his elder brother, totally flushed. Subaru looks away but hugs him lightly._

_It's over. _

_Fuuma-kun looks up at me, disturbed, as I reach for a cigarette. It's different this time, because I actually _need_ it. The atmosphere of the place has become dangerously unsettled._

"_Don't even consider it," I advise my brother instead, avoiding unspoken questions hanging between us, "I do _not_ dance."_

_He looks a little wistful after he flashes me his customary smirk, but I fail to understand the point of tiring myself out for his sake when I know all too well that Kamui-kun will soon return, just for him._

_I'll allow it tonight. It's the last time, after all._

XXX

"You were irresponsible for refusing medical attention," Subaru says sharply, pulling on latex gloves and opening up and assembling a first aid-kit's contents onto the kitchen table where I'm seated. My clothing is on a heap on the floor and I never want to see that shirt or those jeans or sneakers ever again. My brother's shifting personality never fails to amaze me. Just moments ago, he carried me down the stairs because I'm still too weak to walk but now, he couldn't care less.

He finishes the general examination rapidly but doesn't miss even the lightest scratch or bruise. I've lost weight and I'm weak, a little de-hydrated and feverish. Some of the wounds are in danger of turning septic and there might be stitches needed on a few others. The scalds are in desperate need of attention and I'm sore all over.

But I'm alive. I was taken away and written off as dead, but I'm here.

I stare at our couch where an old and hunched man is sitting, missing a lower jaw. The tongue just flops around and he has half the number of teeth he should have. No one else notices him. He looks at me and I turn my head away, breathing hard.

"I'm not a professional," Subaru says again as he swabs my arm with a cotton wad of some foul smelling spirit and zips open the case of injections he's been given, "There was no need to do it this way."

"That's why they're here," I mutter and he gives me a look, clearly telling me to shut up. I stare at the officer at our doorway, tuned into the proceedings, but politely turned away to give us privacy.

He's gentle with the injections, taking his care with each one and finding the right angle to push the siphon and making sure not to hit the same place twice with the needle. Then, he takes me to the bathroom for the fluid samples. He seals and labels each container and checks it twice before sliding it away.

"Anything else you noticed?" Subaru asks finally, packing up everything to hand it over.

"My back hurts," I say as casually as I can and he turns me to study it.

"There's nothing external," he says and then works over it and my neck with his fingers, searching for cuts, obvious fractures or slipped discs.

"Any pain there?"

"Yeah," I say and when he moves his fingers to each side of my spine, he freezes and goes rigid.

After a moment of pure silence that goes unnoticed by the creep at the entrance, he feels the hard ridge of the thick bony line just below my skin.

"Not again," he whispers, forgetting where we are for a minute.

"Sumeragi-san? I beg your pardon?"

The man turns to see us. I'm facing him directly so he can't see my back and for now, we're safe, unless he demands to look.

"He's fine," Subaru replies curtly, "Probably a muscle sprain from the stress of the past few days. It'll heal with the others."

The man takes the bag, filled with parts of _me_ and leaves after bidding us both a good-night.

"I'm sorry," I say after I'm sure he's well away.

Subaru touches the shard of bone again.

"Don't be," he says, trying to gauge its size, "It isn't your fault. Thank goodness you didn't allow anyone else-"

"Is it what I think it is?" I can't help but to ask, twisting to get a look at myself.

"Yes," Subaru says, after he finds a parallel structure on the opposite side, "It is."

"You're growing wings."

XXX

"_I want to see how long you can go without screaming," I tell him and he bites his lip and nods. I'm holding him tightly and we're in the dark, six-foot deep gutter right outside the officers' blocks that no one will ever think of looking into._

"_Remember, your brother's future depends on you now."_

_He doesn't know my name, appearance or rank. I've covered my face well and he'll never know since I will make sure never to show myself to him again. He's just eleven after all._

_Kamui nods and sits with his legs crossed, breathing hard but waiting for it to be over._

_He whimpers and his purple eyes dart around when I get on top of him and push my tongue deep into his mouth. He kicks lightly and tries to instinctively resist as he gags._

_I pull away._

"_Think of Sumeragi-san every time you feel like calling for help," I tell him, "You can't do this one small thing for your brother?" _

_He whispers 'I can, sir' so quietly I almost miss it._

_We start again. I take about twenty minutes and he keeps his word. He doesn't murmur a thing, even when I try testing his resolve a few times by increasing the pain on purpose._

_When we finish, I throw his clothes back at him and he sits in a tiny puddle of his own blood that's drying into the rough and filthy earth._

"_Congratulations," I say and smile at him, "You'll never see me again and your brother will hopefully learn his lesson about whom to report."_

_He just lies down in the dirt and turns away from me._

_The funniest part is that the others are so close by that a single shout would have brought them all onto us._

_Based on what I heard, Sumeragi-san, Sakurazuka-sama, five officers, Fuuma-kun and a counselor couldn't get anything from him. _

_To this day, he hasn't said a thing about it. We haven't met since that afternoon._

XXX

"Can I ask you something?" Subaru asks.

"I know it already," I reply and tighten my mouth to show him what I think.

"I need to know," my brother insists and removes his hand from where it was pressed against my back.

"No!"

He puts it back and waits.

"It was nearly six years ago," I answer, "I was stupid, I didn't know any better and he was someone who wanted to get back at you for something."

"What did he look like?" Subaru asks and I can see he's getting more tense because this is the most I've ever told him after it happened.

"It wasn't anyone we know."

"You can't be sure of-"

"I don't want to talk about this _now_!"

He stops himself and then swallows.

"I'm sorry," Subaru says, "What do you want?"

"I want you to get out of here when I die," I tell him, "You don't care about any girls here so find someone or some_thing_ you do care about and get the fuck out of this shithole"

"All right. What else?"

"Move on. You're terrible at it but if you don't, I'll never forgive you."

"You're asking me to kill my own brother and then move on after doing-"

"You don't understand!" I cut across him, "This is what I _want_."

Subaru sits for a minute in silence then regards me again.

"Are you hungry?" he asks and I snicker before I can stop myself.

"I'm serious," he says, "I won't allow you to die like a common criminal."

One last meal between us.

I stand up.

"I'm starving," I lie.

XXX

The child refuses to stop crying. He's seated on the chair, with stuffed animals being forced into his hands and there are three people holding out candies and lollipops to bribe him into silence, but he pushes them away and doesn't quiet down. He's maybe two or three.

The doctor stands at the corner of the waiting room, looking faintly amused as she waits to administer the syringe.

I walk up to the one who looks like his mother; she has the same fair hair and distressed hazel eyes.

"Can I help somehow?" I ask. At this rate, I'm never going to get my own wounds looked at before I depart again.

"Please!" she exclaims, "I'm so sorry about this, sir, but he just refuses to-"

I pick up the child and that stops his wailing as shock overtakes him. I hold him close, stroking his tiny back and walk with him towards the exit. His mother follows and he keeps his huge blue orbs trained on her as I take him outside and bounce him awkwardly.

It's been years since I did this for Kamui.

I try pointing things out to him; he doesn't understand what I'm saying but watches me show him the sky, the clouds and the red car cruising down the street, until he decides that the needle isn't coming any time soon and falls sound asleep on my shoulder.

He wakes up after the injection but his crying is more muted and as I hand him back to his mother, he sobs and clings to my jacket. He pulls the flap open and for a second, he exposes everything I've been trying to hide; my blood staining the torn shirt, the infection, the scars and the cuts since the night I escaped.

His mother stares in horror but to my surprise, she stays quiet as she studies me.

"I just-"

"I had a younger brother," I say simply and pull down my new shades. Time's running out here.

"Had?"

"He died recently," I say and walk away before she can ask more. And to my shock, it doesn't hurt as much to say that.

_Thank you, Kamui._

XXX

_The charges are impersonation, treason and fraud. The sentence is lifetime experimentation. In other words, it's torture till death._

"_I have a question," Kamui announces in that soft voice of his. He took everything silently although I'm sure that's the passive influence of Subaru who's beside him in his detention room, who's been with him here, sometimes inside or sometimes outside, for the past seventy hours. I pack away my things, file the sheets and fold down the laptop. With luck, Fuuma is already home and I won't have to waste my time-_

"_Seishirou-san, my brother asked you a question!"_

_I turn to Subaru, whose eyes are narrowed in fury as he looks up at me. There are an infinite number of ways I will punish him for this later, so I sit back down. Kamui is anxious now, looking at him almost fearfully._

"_I forget myself, Kamui-kun," I say with a smile, "What did you want to know?"_

"_I don't understand the first charge," Kamui says._

"_Impersonation," I begin, "is the act of pretending to be or illegally acting as-"_

"_No," Kamui cuts in, "I know that. What am I accused of impersonating?"_

_I stare at him, wondering if he's really this unintelligent or if he's playing around._

"_A human being, of course," I tell him as I prepare to leave. I will never see him alive again._

_As I go…Kamui bursts out laughing._

XXX

When I see him bent over the table in his room, apparently trying to do homework but discovering how interesting a blank wall can be when there's an English text-book before him, I forget everything for a few seconds and it takes me a few moments to organize my thoughts.

He sees me and smiles almost hesitantly and I love my brother for that.

I cut his wings off just a week ago.

He's already forgiven me.

"Welcome home," he says and shuts the book.

I greet him and then try to remember what it was I was to inform him: something about school, health or medication that I've lost my grip on.

"I met your school doctor today," I say, recalling at last, "He wanted to talk to me for a few minutes."

Kamui looks up, instantly prepared. He's learned that fatal wounds that never heal can come from the most unlikely of places and he is ready to face them all.

Because of me.

"He told me that your vision has been going down. Didn't you notice-"

The chair hits the ground with a loud crash and Kamui is up against the wall in a corner, his whole body tensed as he breathes heavily and he's holding a flick knife before him which he's produced from God knows where.

"Kamui," I say slowly and take a step towards him. There's a sick feeling of déjà vu, like I'm handling one of the scared specimens in the lab, the way I did before the promotion, but I push it down and move in to him.

"Get the fuck away from me," he hisses, but his hands are shaking and he bites his lip to maintain his calm.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I say slowly and put my arms out to show that there's nothing I can use against him, "Please listen to me."

"I'll kill you, Subaru," my brother says and a freezing cold spike stabs my stomach, "I can't kill myself but I can hurt you."

I assaulted Kamui when he was thirteen, drove my younger brother into a suicidal depression at fifteen and mutilated him at sixteen. I destroyed his life the second I was born before him.

I should be used to it by now.

I let him have that precious feeling of control and security for five more seconds before I come after him.

XXX

"_Did a doctor take a look at Kamui-kun?" I ask, not even trying to keep the boredom out of my voice._

"_Yes! But he refuses to say anything about it."_

_Sumeragi-san's hair is disheveled and he looks vengeful and almost insane with rage._

"_He wishes to keep it confidential then," I say simply and take a sip of coffee, "We have to respect his wishes for privacy. You know our policies."_

"_My eleven-year-old brother was _raped_, for God's sake and passing mindless remarks is the extent of what you're going to do about it?" Sumeragi-san snarls._

"_That's not the point, isn't it?" I ask in return. I'm getting a little weary of his emotional outburst. I don't have to take this from him, even if he is senior to me._

"_You're overreacting Sumeragi-san and you admitted it yourself," I say smoothly, "Your _brother_ was raped. Brother, do you understand? He's not a girl, he can't get pregnant and that simplifies matters. Come back when he decides to tell us something that's actually useful."_

_Sumeragi-san leaves my office and slams the door shut on his way out._

_I hear him spit on the threshold._

_XXX_

"You can see him now," the doctor says and I enter the room, wondering when I can have a life when I don't spend most of my day in disinfected rooms and dead white walls. When I catch sight of a calendar on the wall, the only source of color in the stark place, I see that it's my birthday today.

I'm twenty-five.

Kamui is awake on the bed, still being fed fluids into his body and his arms are in bandages. The doctor leaves us together and the door seals shut.

He's terrified.

I step closer to him and take the chair by his bed.

"I'm sorry," he says, "Subaru, I'm so sorry, please don't be angry, Ni-san, I-"

He looks different to me.

But I know that it doesn't have to do with any physical trait or how emaciated he is now, but because of how I perceive him after what I've been told about my brother by the doctor bare minutes before he saw me off here. Kamui has been diagnosed with Clinical Depression.

He's fifteen.

"I'm not angry," I say, pulling the sheets down to get a look at him. His wrists have been thickly bandaged and there's an arm-warmer over them for dignity. He tried to overdose himself too and even though they've gotten out the half-box worth of Paracetamol he tried to make himself eat at school, he still looks like he's suffering from the taste of those dozens of pills in his mouth.

"Are they going to kill me?" he asks, "Did I do something abnormal again?"

"No!" I exclaim and then lower my volume, "Having Depression is not an abnormality."

I think it has something to do with the fact that so many officers here already have it themselves.

"Why?" I ask him, "You don't ever have to apologize to me for it, but why would you do something so terrible to yourself?"

Kamui shuts his eyes and turns his head.

"It sounded like fun," he says sarcastically and I force myself to stay calm because I know he's baiting me right now, to make it easier for us to separate, but I won't let that happen.

"There was nothing you had to punish yourself for," I say, "You know it's all an act. You know what it's really like between us. Then, why?"

"You'd never understand."

"Kamui-"

"Will you leave me alone for once?"

"I did," I say, "For nine years. And I didn't want to live then."

I take up the list of anti-depressants I've been given and the numbers I can call day or night for assistance or restraints. He's under house arrest for the next three months and I've been assigned to put him through a rigorous suicide watch where he won't be allowed to even use the bathroom on his own or pick the food he wants to eat.

Kamui has fallen asleep, or maybe he's pretending. I have a sudden urge to help him finish what he began; to put him out of his misery because I'm his elder brother and I know have the ability to do it. A light touch to his spine, a swift crack to his neck or a pillow held over his face…and he would be free. Instead, I get into the hospital bed with him and lean his head against my collar as he puffs drugged and feverish breaths against my throat.

I can tell that he wants to say something about the fact that it's my birthday, but he can't bring himself to wish me anything when he tried to kill himself hours before.

After a moment, Kamui puts an arm around my waist and miserably curls up to me as I watch him fall asleep for real.

_XXX  
_

When I see the sealed envelope stuffed into my bag, I swear out loud because I'm probably the only teenager on Earth who has to hand over a report card to his older brother and that too, on his seventeenth birthday.

"Subaru!" I call, grabbing it and going down the stairs. He turns to look at me from the ground floor where he's piling paper together and I hold it out to him as I come down.

"I got my report-"

_XXX_

_The sound of a shower is the only indication I get that Ni-san has returned from his trip._

_He walks into the kitchen dressed in black trousers and a collared white shirt; his version of 'informal'. _

"_Hello," I greet him and he nods in reply._

"_How was the trip?" I prompt, since he'll tell me nothing unless I ask._

"_It was productive," is all Seishirou Ni-san says and then goes to the kitchen to pour himself a drink._

_It's wine; dark red and beautifully translucent. _

"_Can I try some?" I ask and he stops half way, shocked. He stares at me._

_Then he smiles._

"_I sometimes forget you're growing up," he admits and pulls out an extra glass and pours me some too._

_I thank him and sip at it. It's refreshing and the sweetness is sharper than I expected from its seemingly mild appearance. The sting of alcohol mutes the original gentleness its color suggests._

"_Sumeragi-san came back with you, I believe," I tell him and he nods._

"_Kamui-kun will finally look less depressed," Ni-san comments drily and I laugh._

"_Do you understand how two people who have been away from each other for most of their lives can be so close?" I ask him, "Is it possible?"_

_Seishirou Ni-san shoots me a smirk as he puts down his emptied glass._

"_Kamui-kun is fourteen," he explains, "He's little more than a child, locked into a wilderness of licentious men training for the army. Kamui's only protection from them is his elder brother."_

_He tilts his head at me._

"_I'm not sure which category you fall into," he says._

"_I don't believe Kamui would use people that way," I reply, ignoring the jibe, "I don't understand their relationship at all. You mean to say that dependence can turn into genuine love. That's unbelievable. I depend on you, but I don't love you."_

_That just makes him smile some more._

"_Fuuma-kun," he says with an air of finality, "Relationships are not meant to be understood. Trying to do so is a waste of time. Instead, understand that relationships only exist simply to be watched, observed and laughed at. You'll live longer that way."_

"_Thank you Ni-san," I say idly, licking the last drops of wine, "I won't forget that."_

_He takes the glass from me and places it in the sink._

"_For the record," he says over his shoulder as he leaves the kitchen, "I don't love you either."_

XXX

I don't realize that his hand is pressed over my mouth until I hear that my broken words are blurred and distorted. He's rubbing my shoulders with his other hand and waiting for me to calm down before he speaks again. He's careful to avoid the stitches and I can tell that he's kneeling next to me. My fingers are over my eyes and if he tries…if he tries to cut out…

When I lower my voice, he lets go and pulls my hand away from my eyes so we look at each other.

"Are you all right?" he asks. The flick-knife is fifteen feet away, broken, and I stare at that as Subaru helps me up and leads me to the living room.

"I'm sorry," he says, as we sit down together, "I didn't mean to frighten you."

_I didn't mean to frighten you._

He's going to disable me for life and that's all he can say about it.

He gently takes my hand in his own and squeezes it to get rid of the tremors while my breath comes out in unsteady bursts.

And I lash out at him again.

I try to aim for his eye but he grabs my wrist and we end up messily on the floor, thrashing, like we did before when played together years ago, but I'm fighting to hurt him now and when I'm nearly seventeen, we're almost equals. We're both adults and I can finally match up to him.

At last.

"That's enough," Subaru orders, wrestling me down and pinning my arms over my head, "Kamui, don't-"

He's heavier than me and I try to kick but before it connects, he drives a hand down into my abdomen and even though I know he lightened the blow, it leaves me breathless. He sits on my legs and the fight ends there.

"Why do you hate me so_ much_?" I ask, after I know I can speak without breaking down into crying.

I can't survive without my eyes. He can't cut them out. He can't walk through life, cutting and slashing anything he sees as a problem. He can never live that way and neither will I.

"Kamui," Subaru breathes almost fearfully and then his voice breaks. He stares and lets go of me like he's discovered I'm venomous. He swallows hard and starts again.

"You might need glasses soon. Your doctor told me today."

I stare.

"It's not an abnormality," Subaru goes on, "I promise. Even Seishirou-san wears them. Many of the others do too. So it's going to be all right. That's all…that's all I came to tell you before. I'm sorry."

Before I can think of what to say, he gets up and leaves me there.

XXX

"_When has Sumeagi-san scheduled an appointment with me?" Kamui asks me courteously while standing before my desk, holding himself steady even if inside, he is anything but._

_He's just been rescued from his kidnapping and obviously, he wants nothing more than to be with his brother and stay there forever. Of course, it's against protocol to ask a superior that and I look up and smile._

"_Your brother will see you tonight, if he's free," I reply._

_It's 6:03 am._

_Kamui stiffens and then lets out a heavy breath, as if he is going to fight me or begin to cry or both, but he does neither._

_He bows to me and thanks me for my consideration._

_After thinking about it, I move the meeting up to that very afternoon._

XXX

I open my eyes and I'm on the stairs, looking up at the ceiling, with Subaru holding me and trying to smooth my hair down.

"What happened?" I ask, feeling like I've run a race. And I'm drenched in sweat while my legs feel leaden and numb.

"You had a seizure," my brother says and holds up the report card, which I must've dropped, "You collapsed on the stairs. Don't you remember?"

"No."

"That's normal," he says and tries to pull me to sit up but I groan as the world spins and he lets me lie back against him.

"Why didn't you call a doctor?" I ask after a few seconds. Subaru is famous for panicking out at the sight of a cut on me so I'm surprised no one else is here.

"I couldn't," Subaru says quietly, "They would've put you through a scan. We can't take that risk."

"Oh," I say and when I see him biting his lip, I pull myself up with the help of a banister. He guides me down the stairs and we sit on the carpet together.

"How was the report card?" I ask at last, when there's really nothing else to say.

Subaru sighs and puts an arm around me in response.

We sit like that for some more time until he gets up and goes to the kitchen and after a few minutes, I stand to follow him there, feeling weak but gradually better.

"Subaru, what are you-?"

There are two tall glasses filled with champagne on the kitchen counter and he offers one of them to me, green eyes bright with mischief.

"You should accept before I change my mind," he says and I snatch at it. The smell of alcohol stings but the sparkling liquid looks like melted gold.

Subaru raises his glass to me and we clink them.

"Slowly," he advises me as I start to drink. It has a softer taste that I expected but I guess he chose it that way on purpose.

"Happy Birthday," he says and I finish my glass.

To my shock, he refills it and aims me a questioning look, as if challenging me.

I take my glass again and finish it, even if I feel a little queasy. He downs his with ease and then raises an eyebrow. I smirk and nod.

After fifteen minutes, we're both flat on the floor and the bottle is nearly empty. I'm on top of him, giggling and drunk while he tries to calm me down but isn't succeeding too well when he can't stop snickering himself.

We fall asleep like that until morning.

XXX

"Wings," Subaru says, as if trying to convince himself. He grabs my shoulders and gives me a light shake, as if trying to wake us up from the dream we've been thrown into.

"Only you would be capable of developing two abnormal traits within three years," he says as he holds up his phone to my back.

"Don't move," he warns.

He scans it with the X-ray setting and I can feel him breathe hard behind me.

"Are you going to turn me over to them?" I ask. He ignores that.

The wings have grown since the day we found them and now, the bones are protruding outwards a little, like stubborn little triangles buried beneath my skin and extending in length.

He touches them again to test the sensitivity.

"We need to cut them off," Subaru suddenly says under his breath and I flinch involuntarily.

"No! They're a part of me!"

"You're in an extermination and experimentation facility where people who have the same condition as you are electrocuted to death," Subaru says firmly.

"I'll be careful! I'll wear a jacket! I won't show them to anyone!"

"And?" Subaru asks, grabbing my arm and spinning me to look him in the eyes, "Can you stay for the rest of your life without revealing it? A life without medical attention when you're in an accident? Will you live without taking off your shirt in front of someone sooner or later, although judging by the way things are going, it's leaning towards the former?"

"Shut up!"

I try to push him off but he doesn't relinquish his grip.

"This, Kamui, happens to be _my_ choice," he tells me and lets go of me just as I try to slash at his face.

**XXX**

**Author's Note: **

**So I may be obsessed, but I wanted to be the first person to post an X fic on this site for 2014. And either way, I start my year with incest. Fascinating.**

**This is just a casual mention, but if anyone is willing to do fan art for any of my SubKam fics and email it to me, I'm willing to write any X/TRC/TB/Harry Potter/Alex Rider piece they request. I'm so sorry, but I'm into fan art lately and my art skills aren't up to that level yet. Anyone up for it?**

**Please read and review and let me know what you think. XD Happy New Year to all my wonderful friends out there!**


	5. Descend

**Chapter 5**

**Descend**

He stops the car near a heavily wooded park and turns off the ignition. The place is silent, without even the chirping of birds or the rustling of a million leaves.

"We need to be back in three hours," Subaru says and pulls off his seatbelt as he faces me, "Do whatever you like until then."

I slump in the seat involuntarily as the fear drains out of me. The argument this time had been worse than ever and for the first time ever, I swore at him. He'd grabbed me by my wrist and dragged me to the car. We'd driven like that in utter silence for forty minutes.

"You heard me," Subaru says again, "Do whatever you wanted to do in the house. Take it out here. No one will hear you except for me."

He's not ready for when I lean down and lay my head on his leg. Sixteen years old and I still haven't grown up.

He freezes, then softly brushes the hair out of my face.

"And here I thought you were going to slaughter me," Subaru whispers playfully, "I was scared the whole time I was driving."

"I thought you were going to hurt me," I say back and my voice is completely choked with tears. When he hears that, he sighs but reclines his seat a little and pulls me up slowly, avoiding the gear stick and wheel, so I'm lying loosely against him. My legs are going to be numb after this, but I don't want to move.

"Didn't you want to fight?" Subaru teases. He runs a finger over my back through the shirt and makes me writhe when he hits a ticklish spot.

"No," I breathe into his jacket, rubbing my eyes, "I never did."

There's silence for a while as I try to control my breathing and stare out the window and I can feel him raking his fingers through his hair, as if considering his next move.

"Sometimes I feel like I don't know you," Subaru says at last, winding his arms around me and leaning his head on my shoulder.

"We could talk," I suggest quietly.

"All right," he agrees, "Whatever you want."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

I think about it for a minute then pull myself up to look him in the eye.

"Do you watch porn?"

Subaru coughs and pushes me back so I hit the steering wheel by accident and set off the horn, making us both jump again. We take each other in like aliens meeting for the first time.

"You said 'anything'," I remind him and he tugs me back exasperatedly.

"So I did," he admits reluctantly.

"And?"

"I don't watch porn, Kamui."

"I was curious," I say, "I don't even know what you think of it."

"It's an indulgence," Subaru says but I can tell he's amused, "That's all. Nothing more or less. Is there anything else crucial you want to know about me, Kamui-sama?"

"Take me home," I mumble into his shirt so he can't see me smiling, "Please."

XXX

_Kamui screams in his sleep just as we're finishing off the meeting and Subaru-kun leaps out of his chair to go to him in the bedroom, but makes himself stop and stare at me first._

_His green eyes do all the imploring for him._

"_Seishirou-san…"_

"_Go to him," I say lightly and he flies down the hallway as Kamui breaks into violent sobbing. I walk into the bedroom to find Subaru-kun trying to wake the child. The way he does it is strange. He doesn't bother to hold his brother or lift him out of sleep, but tries to shake his shoulder instead, as if rousing an acquaintance. It tells me how things have changed between them forever because of another stranger and a few minutes of his pleasure._

"_Kamui, please get up! Kamui! Listen to me!"_

_He's twenty and his brother was raped three weeks ago._

_Kamui shudders into consciousness and takes in Subaru's face drowsily, but tearfully. He sees me at the doorway and then sidles away to the farthest edge of the bed._

_He finally calms down and waits for a harsh word or a scolding for the noise he's caused, but Subaru just gets onto the bed to kneel by him._

"_Was it a nightmare about what happened?" he questions gently and the eleven-year-old nods, keeping his elder brother at a distance with a look._

_Subaru-kun reaches out as if to draw him into a hug, but stops when he sees Kamui's face._

"_May I touch you?" he asks carefully. Kamui shakes his head furiously and Subaru-kun shuts his eyes for a long moment._

"_It's going to be all right," he tells Kamui, who doesn't budge a muscle, "You're safe with me. You're going to be looked after."_

_Kamui is mute and Subaru-kun simply gets off the bed and pushes past me roughly._

_He only lets his own tears come when he's sure Kamui can't see us. He slams his fists into the wall and swears even as he chokes._

"_I'll kill that bastard," he whispers to the space around us. The whirring of a fridge, the clock ticking and the hum of an electric lamp mock him in return._

_I watch for a few minutes and then leave him there._

XXX

He notices the smell of disinfectant the moment he opens the door after school.

"Subaru," he begins but I go up to him first and hug him before he can say anything about it.

"I'm sorry," he says and I know he's talking about yesterday's argument. The wings are getting more and more noticeable. Soon, they will begin to expand outwards and blacken.

"I'm sorry too," I say and I feel dizzy but take a deep breath as I lean against him and then, I'm fine again.

Kamui turns his head and sees the table in the next room. It's been cleared, cleaned and lined with absorbent sheets. The floor is covered with plastic. There's a metallic box of what I will need, and a roll of duct tape on it.

He tries to fight, of course, but it's too easy to subdue him and somewhere, I hate myself for not teaching him more before, because if I were the one he had to defend himself against, I should've taught him much, much harder.

"Subaru, please don't! Please, anything but that-I'll do everything else you make me do! I'm sorry! I told you I was sorry for-"

"It's not your fault," I keep telling him as he thrashes and I carefully constrict his breathing, inch-by-inch until I can leave him on all fours on the table, half-conscious.

I come back with the syringe I prepared by myself while he was away.

He tries to bite me and I notice that even the way he fights is becoming more animal-like and primitive. I need to do this soon.

The syringe's tip slides smoothly into soft skin and he gasps when I push the handle down and restrain him until it takes effect.

I can't even put him under.

This is an operation I'm doing in my own house. I'm doing it with whatever I could sterilize in the labs without gaining too much attention. I need him conscious so I can keep track of his status.

He will never forgive me and he will never recover.

But he'll live.

I use strips of duct-tape to gag him so he can't scream. Then, I just push him over his knees and find the first bone. He's too floppy to resist me and there's a single fluffy, baby feather starting to grow there at the axis. It's black and silky.

If I gave him half a year, they would become the powerful and looming wings of an angel…no, a glorious Seraphim who could rule the heavens itself.

I pick up the first serrated blade and start my work.

XXX

"You fell asleep, Kamui," Fuuma tells me, trying to tug me up but I can't stand just yet.

"Sorry," I say and he studies me.

"Is anything wrong?" he asks and I shake my head even before he finishes, "Did you have a bad dream? You're more tired these days."

"I have a fever."

"Did Sumeragi-san take you to a doctor?"

"There wasn't time," I say, "There's the ceremony this evening."

"Ah, that," Fuuma says and watches me pack up.

"Why don't you carry your bag over your shoulder?" he asks me as I drag it.

"It's too heavy."

"With three books? Come here, I'll take it."

"It's all right, Fuuma."

He takes it anyway and leads me all the way to my door.

"I'd better leave," he says with a wide smile, "Your brother hates me."

He laughs and messes up my hair when I stare at him.

"I hate him too," I say quietly and he stops.

He looks at me.

"I'll see you today evening," he says cheerfully after a slight pause and leaves me there.

XXX

"Happy?" Kamui asks irritably, spreading his arms out, "Good enough for you?"

Today's the day he'll be examined again and they'll decide whether he'll be institutionalized in a children's home because of the suicide attempt, or if he can stay with me.

I look him over as we wait in the empty and sterile room. I made him wear extra layers to give out the impression of being well fed, when his weight just barely crosses the required mark. There can't be anything that poses a threat to his safety or I'll lose him.

And I freeze.

"Sit down," I order and the fifteen-year-old looks startled, "Kamui, now!"

"What?"

I push him onto the waiting room's chair but he's so slight that he lands with a painful thud. I kneel and grab his right leg.

"Subaru, what the _hell_!?"

I seize his ankle and rip the laces of his shoe out of their knot. It's impossible and he cries out when I jerk his ankle by accident.

"Why did you do your shoelaces today of all days?" I ask in despair, yanking at the shoe instead. He yelps as he slides and grabs my shoulder for support.

"I am not going to hang myself! Leave me alone!"

"I know that, but they don't!"

I just pull off his sock with the sneaker when the door opens and the doctor comes out. She has three other officers at her side, to separate us if she chooses so.

She raises an eyebrow and the men gape at me.

I realize that I'm kneeling in front of my brother's spread legs, holding onto his bare foot, while he's in danger of tumbling into my lap any second.

I want to tell her that this isn't what it looks like, but then I understand that she doesn't care about any of that.

She takes in Kamui, assessing him with her eyes and he breathes in hard as he realizes this is the crucial moment that will judge the rest of his life.

XXX

The liquid around me is red. I try to get up, but Subaru pushes me down.

I realize I'm lying back in a tub of warm water and try to struggle out of it again but Subaru catches my shoulders and supports me there.

"It's all right. I'm holding you."

I kick and bloodied water splatters onto his shirt just before a jolt of pain rips through me and I groan. The duct-tape has been peeled off my mouth but I remember barely anything of the surgery.

"There are stitches on your back," Subaru tells me calmly, "Don't break them open."

I try to kick him once again. I keep doing it until I'm exhausted and we're both drenched in my watery blood. He doesn't say a thing.

I let him wait with me until the residual liquid drains away, leaving only faint pink rims around the bottom of the white tub that'll he'll probably bleach out as soon as he can.

"Listen to me," he says as he towels me dry cautiously, the way he did when I was six and still at the institution.

"Even though you don't have your wings, you're not out of danger yet," he tells me and carries me to my room after pulling on a nightshirt of some soft material I barely feel.

"Others with the same abilities as you will be able to recognize you as one of their kind," Subaru says and pulls up the covers once I'm in bed, "Stay away from the main facility and the extermination site from now on."

"There's another formal dinner in three days," he tells me, "You need to come with me because I can't leave you alone here. Try to sleep for now. I gave you an amnesiac so you won't remember the actual operation."

He clicks off the light but hesitates at the door.

"I'm sorry, Kamui," he says, "I mean that."

The door shuts.

XXX

"Remove him," the doctor says and the three officers step forward to efficiently part us. That's all. A lifetime of being cut away summarized in two words.

"What?"

My brother looks like he hasn't heard it correctly and I'm too stunned to respond. But when they advance upon us, he's the first to move.

Kamui falls out of the chair and clings to me as I instinctively wrap my arms around him. I catch sight of his small toes curling on the cold floor as he tries to push against me and he screams when one of them grabs the back of his shirt and try to yank him out of my grasp as if he's a misbehaving pig rather than a slight fifteen-year-old.

"I'm sorry!" he screams at the doctor who's turning away, as someone else tries to free his arms and I strike at one of the men without thinking, "I'm sorry! I won't do it again! Please! Don't take me away!"

"Leave him alone!" I yell at the one who's closest and he regards me amusedly as I shield Kamui's head and neck from their touches.

My brother is shrieking, nearly choking me and a vague part of my mind registers that he's going to lose his voice at this rate. He's almost on top of me as we struggle against three.

"Stop it! Please!"

Kamui calls out my name in desperation and scratches my cheek as he fights, trying to shake off the others and I dig into his shirt with my nails, refusing to surrender.

"I don't want to go," he cries to no one, "I want to stay here!"

He tries to wind a leg around me but someone grabs his knee and pulls just as arms hook under my own shoulders and he lets out a scream that freezes my blood.

"That'll do."

The doctor's voice stops them and they back off as Kamui breaks down in relief, sagging to the floor. I release him and stand up before I'm arrested for assault.

She kneels beside Kamui and lifts up his tear-stained face with a single finger, studying him dispassionately as he sobs.

"Do you want to live?" she asks him softly.

"Yes," my brother breathes, "Please."

She stands up and faces me.

"This isn't a lesson I teach more than once," she tells me and leaves for her office, her work done. It's child psychology and suicide prevention at its most efficient.

Kamui lies on the floor, limp and still crying softly, releasing eight years' worth of grief and fear right now. It takes me a few moments to get my bearings but when I do, I lean down and try to comfort him. It's only when I kiss his cheek that I realize there are tears running down my face too. We embrace like that, my face against his throat as both our hearts race on and I ignore the officers who watch us, snickering.

"I'll never leave y-"

I cover my brother's mouth with my hand because when you say a promise out loud, you tempt the world to break it.

XXX

"_Do you know what a 'liability' is?" I ask Kamui. He's eight and for once, that brother of his is out of sight._

"_I don't care," he replies sulkily. He's been moody the whole three days I've been told to take care of him till Sumeragi-san returns from the business trip and I can't take this anymore._

"_You should," I say, "That's what you are to Sumeragi-san."_

_._

_._

_To my considerable surprise, I found him with a dictionary propped open over his lap in school, a few days later._

Liability: A person or a thing whose presence/behavior causes embarrassment or puts others at a disadvantage.

XXX

When I come through the doors of the hall the evening of the formal dinner, each one of the two hundred people in the room stand up and salute me.

I stand at the doorway and catch Subaru watching me, across the room, motionless, from where he's seated at the official table.

I lift my arm slowly and salute him and the others in return, feeling the stitches strain with every inch I move. The men smile a little, their wives coo and the other cadets roll their eyes.

Subaru excuses himself after five minutes and goes to the restroom.

His eyes are red when he returns.

XXX

"_Subaru-san," I begin nervously, "I apologize for the delicacy of this situation."_

_Subaru-san doesn't hear me but stares at where his brother kneels, his head bowed, only his back shifting slightly as he breathes, casually resting against the top of another row before him._

"_Father," he begins awkwardly, probably having never used the word to a priest before and then goes on, "How long has this been going on?"_

"_Four weeks," I say, "No one else visits this cathedral. It's seen as a historical site but he's been a regular visitor for about the last month or so."_

_I'm sure it's more to escape his brother than for any religious purpose, but decide not to mention that._

_Subaru-san nods carefully, his eyes still trained on Kamui-chan thirty feet away and though it sounds rather clichéd to be doing this, considering my calling, I can't help but to pray that God will protect the younger boy from his brother's rumored rage._

"_I was told," I begin carefully, "That he recently tried to take his own life. I thought that exploring spirituality would help him, so I never interfered, but I apologize if this goes against your own religious-"_

"_I'll take care of this," Subaru-san says curtly, "Thank you for your concern."_

_I bow and retreat. In this huge and ancient place of worship, there are many places one can hide without being seen; multiple floors, monumental pillars with ornate carvings, high ceilings, flying buttresses, beautifully stained glass windows that begin at the floor and reach for the sky, deceptive confessionals, the majestic shrine at the front and the grand organ high in the air at the back that all undermine the very existence of humans within the walls. I wait in a secluded spot and watch._

_Subaru-san walks over to his brother, who doesn't notice him and rests his hands on Kamui's small shoulders from behind. Kamui-chan flinches in shock and twists to stare at his brother, trying to defend himself, search for words or raise an arm to block a blow but before he can, Subaru-san kneels next to him and to my shock, tries to calm him down, taking his face into his hands as he does so. Kamui-chan's arms are still in the black arm-warmers and his brother looks at it for a moment before breaking his gaze away._

_Subaru-san is smiling slightly and places a hand on his brother's denim covered ankle as he speaks to Kamui-chan gently. He says something the makes the boy blush and look sheepish. Kamui-chan's hands reach for his own ripped jeans in embarrassment and Subaru-san shakes his head in light amusement._

_Kamui-chan had no idea of the dress code required in a cathedral._

_I have to laugh myself, but I do it quietly._

_Subaru-san stands up and hooks his arms under Kamui-chan's shoulders to pull the boy backwards onto a pew, since his legs have clearly gone numb after hours of kneeling on the frigid wood. It's awkward and difficult but finally, Kamui-chan stretches out on the bench while Subaru-san rests the boy's head in his own lap and takes one of his hands in his own, warming it up. They sit in silence for a while, Kamui-chan nuzzling into his brother's leg and Subaru-san frowning around the church as he observes it._

_Kamui-chan points out to one of the stained glass windows and asks his brother something. It's a huge glass mural of the Crucifixion of our Savior and he always seemed both fascinated and horrified by it, but too bashful to ask me more._

_I expect Subaru-san to shrug or change the subject, but instead, to my surprise, he leans back and begins to speak quietly, his eyes settling somewhere high above._

_I assume he begins re-telling undying story of Christ and Kamui-chan listens in rapt attention as it unfolds._

_His face shows his changing emotions… from wonder to amazement, fear to horror and then awe and exhilaration. After half-an-hour he stares at the scene in a revelation of new understanding._

_The cathedral is cold and Subaru-san drapes his trench coat over his brother, who doesn't notice the gesture but simply drinks in the picture with his eyes from where he lies, cherished and loved, in his brother's lap, even if his eyes have not opened to that light yet._

_His face is peaceful, at last._

XXX

I watch people load their plates with food at the gourmet buffet line. For a world of supposedly dignified people and the cream of army society, no one here has heard of table manners.

"I have painkillers if you're-"

"I'm fine."

I've cut my brother off in public but I'm too tired to wince inside.

"Is anything wrong?" a woman asks him, overhearing our exchange.

Subaru smiles at her, sparing me the trouble of snapping at her.

"Thank you for your concern," he says politely, "but my brother's just been a little feverish since the start of the-"

He's interrupted by screams and breaking glass. For a moment, I think it's someone's cell phone ringtone or that the younger students are playing outside but then, I realize that this is the army and that if anything were to happen, it would start here.

There's a commotion outside and while everyone else on duty is immediately ready to handle the problem, Subaru falters as he takes me into the equation. Outside, with him, I'm open to whatever is there. Inside, I'm too weak to fight off anyone who tries to make use of the diversion to get at me. Everyone, including the man from six years ago, is here in this room.

He takes my hand and pulls me outside with him. He doesn't have his gun for once.

"Don't let go, Kamui," he tells me and I nod. My back is hurting me. The whole thing is like the goddamn climax to an action movie.

It's a dark night, breezy and cool and I can make out the electrified barbed wires that rise into the night and mark off the extermination site.

There's a neat formation, ready to deal with whatever may come and looking at the fifty on duty, straight in line and civilians being herded inside calmly, I understand why Subaru brought me here. It's a place where the evils of the outside world can never prevail.

The only danger here is from within, which he still doesn't understand.

I see it as lights and torches come on.

There's something on the ground. It's larger than a normal human, with huge looming membranes extending from either side of it's body, the very wings I was growing before, but these are charred and have holes in them as the thing they belong to is shrieking and moaning in pain as it convylses on the ground.

"It tried to fly over the wire," Subaru says next to me and I clutch the sleeve of his uniform the way I did when I was smaller, before I can stop myself. When he finally sees what it is, his eyes go wide.

"Get inside," he orders me and gives me a light shove, but the doors have been sealed and it's too late. I stand behind him instead.

It squirms for a few more seconds and the soldiers watch it carefully, unsure of what to do. A commander is still being called for since no on else is authorized to pass an execution order outside the actual facility.

It stares right at me with luminous eyes.

I jump then and Subaru steps back from that thing, treading on my toes by accident and nearly knocking me over.

"Sumeragi-san," someone starts as it begins to lop step by step to where I am.

It knows. It knows that I am just like it.

"Pass me a gun," my brother orders and throws an arm out, blocking me from its view.

"You can't!"

"A gun! Somebody, now!"

"Ni-san, don't-"

I get interrupted as the half-dead creature hurls itself at me, the wings fluttering a little and it covers the full eight-meter distance with one bound.

I'm pushed back onto the ground and scream when my shredded back hits the rough gravel surface.

Subaru bends over, seizes the pistol that's slid to him, rises and fires six successive shots that I feel instead of see.

The winged person collapses at his feet and after a few seconds of death-throes, it goes still.

Silence.

The whole place breaks into applause and Subaru checks it to make sure it's dead before he helps me up and spots that the back of my shirt is wet with blood.

He quickly removes his own jacket to slip it over me instead and zips it up fully, swearing when it gets stuck in the middle, but I'm safe for now.

"I'll watch him until they let you go, Subaru-kun," Seishirou-san says cheerfully, appearing out of nowhere and Subaru thinks for a moment before handing me over to him.

His eyes tell me everything they need to.

"Are you all right?" Fuuma asks, putting an arm around me and I nod. Subaru, luckily, doesn't notice or pretends not to.

The last thing I see before getting into Seishirou-san's car are people reaching out to shake my brother's hand.

XXX

"Hello, Kamui."

I smile at him, where he lingers at the doorway, too nervous to enter but too scared to let me out of sight.

He smiles back.

"Subaru."

I hold out an arm to him, inviting him into the kitchen. The soup is simmering on the stove and I just have to add a little bit of seasoning to it because he doesn't like it plain the way I do. I realize how much I missed him those eighteen days; eating by myself, being the only person in the house, not having him yell at me over homework, missing our fights and practice sessions and learning how many hours of my day he actually had monopoly over.

"Come here," I say again but he's still hesitant.

"Can you turn off the stove, please?" he asks, and the smile is fading a little, but stays.

I stare at it. There are thick blue flames curling around the pot, tinged with yellow, turning the air around the kitchen fuzzy and hot and his eyes are fixed on it warily.

I turn it off and when the ring is black again, he comes towards me and I take him into my arms, holding him close.

"I missed you," he says sleepily, contentedly burying his face in my shirt. I hug him back but make sure not to touch the sensitive wings under his shirt.

"I did too."

The stove stays turned off.

XXX

"_Ask him for a ride," I urge her and she flushes._

"_I can't!"_

"_He has to."_

_Sumeragi-kun knows a lot about style. Unlike most of the others here, he was brought up in luxury and drowned in money, until he was disinherited by his father for adopting Kamui-chan._

_Hence, he's the only one who can drive the upgraded sports bike that's been newly delivered._

_He probably expected no one to care about it, but to his shock, there's a crowd to watch him the first time he gets onto it and I can't blame him for looking a little overwhelmed; he's eighteen after all._

_My sister looks at him and turns red again._

"_Will he really give me a ride?" she asks, "He barely knows us."_

"_He's a push-over," I convince her as the crowd jostles us, "Just smile and wave and he'll have to. I am his senior after all."_

"_You're misusing your position," she chides me lightly but doesn't sound too bothered by it and scoots forward to catch his eye._

_Kamui is watching his brother in admiration from where he's playing in a sprinkler with Fuuma-chan, who is now ten. They've stopped stalking each other with water balloons and play guns to watch the spectacle in swimming shorts and look dazzled._

_Sumeragi-kun, putting on his helmet, catches sight of my sister and bows politely to her, picking her out from the rest of the crowd. She eagerly steps forward, almost stumbling but instead of going towards her, Subaru reaches Kamui and scoops up the soaking wet boy into his arms, splashing water all over the lawn._

"_Do you want a ride?" he asks him coyly and Kamui writhes and shrieks in laughter as Sumeragi-kun playfully dumps him onto the seat and fixes a spare helmet over his head, doing up the straps under the chin and checking it twice._

_Fuuma-chan begins to cry as quietly as he can. The motor bike is that beautiful._

_The next instant, Sumeragi-kun picks him up and seats him beside Kamui. He gets a helmet too. There's a light struggles as Subaru tries to put his own helmet over the shades the younger boy refuses to take off, but they manage._

"_Make sure you both don't fall off," Sumeragi-kun instructs the older boy and Fuuma-chan nods as if he's been told to save the world. _

_Subaru mounts the bike and starts it up. Kamui clings to the back of his brother's shirt, Fuuma-chan wraps his arms around Kamui and Subaru checks to see if they're all secure._

_He sees my sister standing there awkwardly and pushes up his visor._

"_Is anything the matter?" he asks courteously and waits._

_When she furiously shakes her head, he smiles and kicks starts it._

_They disappear and everyone breaks into applause._

XXX

"What is that?"

"Look at it."

He does and then looks up at me, clearly not understanding.

"It's a list of the fourteen people you saved the day you let yourself be taken away," I tell him, "You're the reason they breathe today. And if they call you 'weak' or 'delicate' because of what you went through, I want you to remember that the reason they're alive to do that is because of _your_ sacrifice."

He takes that in but lets the card drop.

"Maybe I was wrong," he says, "Maybe I shouldn't have done anything. We're the ones who deserve to die. We kill every _day_."

He flinches when he feels my hand on his shoulder, probably thinking I'm going to punish him but makes no other move to defend himself.

"You don't," I tell him calmly, "Staying with us here doesn't make you a part of this. I spent ten years making sure of-"

"I'm going insane," Kamui whispers, "Subaru, I don't know what to think anymore. Isn't that insanity?"

This time, I do hit him. I turn him over roughly and strike his face.

"That's enough," I say as briskly as I can, dragging him into a sitting position as he stares at me, confused and hurt, "You're fine. People who are going insane don't wonder if they are. Now, can you come down to eat or shall I bring it up here?"

"I'll come down," Kamui mumbles and loosely wraps his arms around me, "Why do you always hit me?"

"Because you're reckless, thoughtless and prone to losing yourself every second of the day. And because I love you and you wouldn't listen to me otherwise."

I hug him back tightly.

"If _I _hit you for that every time, you'd be _dead_," Kamui breathes into my embrace.

"Sometimes, I wish I were."

I catch his hand before he can land a blow. He swears and tries to jerk away.

"Let's eat before we start pulling each other's hair," I suggest casually just because I know it will infuriate him even more to be treated like a child.

I tackle him when he tries again and he yells because I pin him down to the bed and stick a finger into his hip as he giggles and tries to shove me off. Once I start, he can't stop.

The resulting tickle fight ends when I'm pushed off the bed and hit my head hard on the floor. The next second, my brother is by my side, worriedly feeling for blood or an injury.

"I'm fine," I tell him.

The light hearted moment is gone and we're back to our original roles, perfectly in-character and flawless about whatever we do or say.

Or so I delude myself.

Kamui slaps me hard and for a second, I want to grab him, push him up against a wall and take him for myself before anyone else does, but before I can move, he's out of the room, leaving me alone with my horror.

He's not insane.

I am.

XXX

"_If I recall correctly, Kamui-kun," Ni-san says as he rummages through cupboards and cabinets, "You never really had dinner."_

"_There's no need," Kamui says weakly, "Please don't trouble yourself. I just want to sleep."_

"_Can we phone Sumeragi-san?" I ask, settling next to him on the couch._

"_I doubt it," Ni-san says brightly and I get the impression that he's enjoying this immensely, "He's probably still being molested by the crowd of admirers back there."_

"_It was half-dead," I point out and Kamui shudders, "Not really a great achievement."_

_Ni-san prepares some bread and tea and hands it on a dish to Kamui who eats agonizingly slowly._

"_Take off your brother's jacket," I tell him, "You know you can't wear that, with all the medals on it."_

_I try tugging it off but Kamui hits my hand away._

"_Leave him alone," Ni-san says pleasantly, pouring himself a drink and coming to sit down with us. He hasn't stopped smiling._

"_A good chance to find Subaru-kun a girlfriend, what do you think, Kamui-kun?"_

"_Huh?"_

_He looks adorably shocked and I have to laugh._

"_I don't think Sumeragi-san is interested in girls," I can't help but to say and Kamui looks petrified, but Ni-san shoots me a look and I fall quiet. He gets up after light conversation with Kamui, asking him about school, homework and training. When it becomes clear that Sumeragi-san will not retrieve his brother anytime tonight, Ni-san excuses himself and retires to another room to read, instructing me to make sure Kamui is settled comfortably upstairs._

_When I'm sure he's out of sight, I seize Kamui and pull him roughly against myself. I catch him from behind and he cries out in surprise before I completely have him subdued. Ni-san must've heard that but he doesn't come to investigate so I assume he's ignoring it on purpose._

"_Sumeragi-san isn't interested in girls," I say, and he struggles wildly against me, but he's slower these days and not as healthy as before._

"_I don't think you are either," I whisper into his ear and after a few moments where I can feel his heart fluttering under my hands, he twists in my grip and turns to face me. _

_His eyes are on fire and I realize that he's finally tired and sick of hiding and running._

"_No. I'm not," he says and kisses me hard._

XXX

"She gave us names of a few others like her before she died," Seishirou-san says and passes the clipboard to me, "Surprisingly, not by choice. Apart from her abnormality, she would've made an excellent addition to our ranks. She managed to attend Kamui-kun's school for eight months before her discovery."

"Is that so."

I remember Kamui talking about the new girl in his class; with her, there were six people in all. She had bright blue eyes, curly yellow hair and taught him to read the lines on his hands.

Her name was Kotori.

I take the clipboard and scan it as carelessly as I can. Seishirou-san watches me with a wide smile.

I don't understand why until I see the eighth name down, the list of other abnormal people unwillingly extricated from Kotori-san's mouth in the last moments of her dark life.

_(Sumeragi) Shirou Kamui. _


End file.
